Chandigarh: Chairs designed by Pierre Jeanneret fetch Rs 7.18 lakh in France

Chandigarh, February 26

In yet another auction of UT’s heritage items, a pair of chairs from the city went under the hammer in France on February 24, and fetched Rs 7.18 lakh.

Ajay Jagga, a member of the Heritage Items Protection Cell of the Chandigarh Administration, said the chairs, designed by Pierre Jeanneret, were auctioned by Carvajal Svv, an auction house of Antibes in France.

“The Archaeological Survey of India says the Chandigarh goods are not antiquity, although the home ministry has imposed a soft ban on movement of such goods outside India in 2011. However, it is observed that these articles are clearly covered under the definition of ‘art treasure’,” Jagga wrote to external affairs minister S Jaishankar and culture minister G Kishan Reddy.

He said declaration of Chandigarh heritage articles as art treasure would ensure the ban on export. “In the absence of same, we have lost heritage articles of nearly Rs 1,000 crore value in the past 15 years.”