India, May 16 -- On 1 April 2026, a Raja Ravi Varma painting made national headlines when it was sold for a staggering Rs.167 crore after an intense bidding war at auction. Raja Ravi Varma is one of the nine artists declared as a Navratna or one of the Nine Gems of Indian art, whose works are considered national treasures. Rather strikingly, the list is not fully representative of the pan-Indian art scene, as six of the nine belong to Bengal. With such a dominance of the Bengal School, there has been a dearth of research on artists from the Bombay and Madras schools, who played an equally important role in shaping the artistic landscape of early twentieth-century India.

Rao Bahadur MV Dhurandhar: A Painter from the Bombay School of Art b...