Auction brings Bombay sheth’s centuries-old estate to collectors for first time

An estate sale often gives collectors and historians a rich source of material to study.

Mumbai: Mita Sujan, the Woldenberg professor of marketing at the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University in New Orleans, has been teaching the fundamentals of business-like decision-making to her students for decades. Yet, there was one decision that she had put off making for years — selling her family’s estate accumulated over the past two centuries. “I was very sad, because it meant I was dismantling an era,” she said.

Auction brings Bombay sheth’s centuries-old estate to collectors for first time

The 72-year-old is a descendant of Sir Mangaldas Nathubhai, one of the 19th-century merchant princes or sheths, as they are called, of what was then Bombay. Though only a handful, they had not just a great deal of wealth but also wielded significant influence in their respective communities. More importantly, their commercial interests and philanthropic activities helped build the city.

Mangaldas Nathubhai (referred to in some documents as Nathoobhoy), born in 1832, was a well-known figure in the city. Even today, 200 years on, a famous wholesale cloth market in south Mumbai is named after him, and the family crest — comprising two elephants and the motto, ‘Wisdom above riches’ — adorns gates and building facades. The road between Grant Road and Girgaum was once called Mangaldas Wadi Road because it was flanked by his properties on either side.

French Figural Mantel Clock with Equestrian Rider photos: Prinseps

A large swathe of the Mangaldas estate that was passed down through Sujan’s family line has been put up for auction for the first time. It forms the most comprehensive public sale of his movable assets till date. On October 29, Prinseps, the Mumbai-headquartered auction house, concluded the sale of rare and old books, including James Forbes’s Oriental Memoirs (1813); The Durbar: A Grand Illustrated Record of the Delhi Coronation (1903) by Dorothy and Mortimer Menpes; and Rupavali (1939), an instruction manual on traditional Indian art forms and iconography by Nandlal Bose, the Santiniketan artist who went on to illustrate in the Indian Constitution a decade later. The 53 lots fetched a sum of ₹22.36 lakh. (None of the prices quoted include the 25% buyer’s premium.)

Two sales were concluded earlier this month. A porcelain collection, comprising 38 lots of vases, cups and saucers, statues from China and Japan, including Satsuma vases, fetched a tidy sum of ₹15.51 lakh. Another sale of 18 lots of clocks and timepieces sold for ₹8.91 lakh on October 22.

“Since these are historical pieces, these cannot be exported. These pieces would have probably sold for 10 times the amount in China, which has a thriving market for porcelain,” Indrajit Chatterjee, founder and curator of Prinseps, said. Given that this is a first-of-its-kind auction of such porcelain pieces in India, the catalogue aims to create awareness about the various periods and the types of porcelain.

An ongoing auction of British colonial and Art Deco furniture pieces will conclude on November 5. Still to come up — silverware, and a rare collection of coins dating back to the Delhi Sultanate and early Mughal period. The dates for those auctions are yet to be announced.

Though Mangaldas received knighthood in 1875 — his Malabar Hill mansion, adjoining the governor’s house, Raj Bhavan, was “one of Bombay’s great social anchors” according to Chatterjee — he was also vocal for local needs.

The Maharashtra State Gazetteers notes Mangaldas’s participation in a public protest against the increase in income tax by the Government of India: “The Bombay Association [of which Mangaldas was one time president] channelised the growing public interest. (...) The third public meeting, attended by about 2,000 in the Town Hall (...) attracted not only the leaders of society, but also small traders in large numbers, all concerned to memo­rialise the Secretary of State to disallow the Indian Income Tax Act of 1870. The speeches were delivered by Mangaldas Nathubhai, Sir Jamshetji Jijibhai, V. J. Shankarshet, Nanabhai Beramji Jijibhai and Narayan V. Dabholkar.”

Christine Dibben, author of Urban Leadership in Western India: Politics and Communities in Bombay City 1840-1885, notes that Mangaldas was a promoter/director of the Commercial Bank of India and the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China.

In 1860, Mangaldas floated the Bombay United Spinning and Weaving Company during the American Civil War, when cotton exports were extremely profitable. But he was by no means peculiar in his riches. The city thrummed with wealthy businessmen called sheths, like Jagannath Shankarshet, Goculdas Tejpal, Varjivandas Madhavdas, Jamsetji Tata, Sir Cowasji Jehangir Readymoney, and Premchand Raichand, among others.

The city attracted the entrepreneurial-minded who retained strong ties with their communities spread across the Bombay Presidency (which included modern-day Gujarat). According to economic historian Radhe Shyam Rungta (The Rise of Business Corporations of India 1851-1900), this proved to be crucial to the success of Indian businessmen, who derived manpower and resources from their close-knit ties, despite hostile colonial trade policies and laws.

Sir Mangaldas Nathubhai, a 19th-century merchant prince or sheth.

An estate sale often gives collectors and historians a rich source of material to study. It has the potential to corroborate or disprove theories, and excites the professional collector and amateur city historian alike. In this instance, Chatterjee said, the sale allowed his team to not only delve deeper into the history of the businessman, but also study the patterns of trade between India, China, and Japan. For the collector, it offers a rare chance to play amateur detective, and provides the holy grail of any collection: provenance.

Take the pair of two-feet tall Qing dynasty (Kangxi period) Nanking crackleware vases, hand-painted with scenes from a battle showing soldiers on horseback and bearing heralds with fierce expressions, which sold for ₹1.8 lakh. Turn them gingerly upside down and you’ll see an apocryphal Kangxi mark on one, and a seal on the other — both can be used to date the works.

Nanking cracklewares (named after the glazed look of fine cracks on the surface) were so popular in the 19th century that artisans often produced wares for specific markets, India being one of them. According to Edward Dillon’s richly detailed book, Porcelain (1904), which forms part of the Mangaldas estate’s library — an indication that the family studied before it bought — seals and apocryphal marks such as those made in the Chenghua or the Kangxi reign were often used by artisans to tie their wares back to erstwhile imperial eras. The love for antiques was clearly a popular sentiment even back then.

Japanese Satsuma ceramics, which form part of the estate collection, remain a favourite among Mumbai’s elite even today. First developed under the Shimazu clan in the 16th century, Satsuma flourished during the Meiji and Taishō periods as one of Japan’s most admired artistic exports. A pair of three-foot floor vases, which formed part of the estate, sold for ₹2.2 lakh.

The 19th-century Indian collector was fascinated with Ming and early Qing prototypes, as is evidenced by the tastefully put-together drawing rooms of the city’s elite. A similarly painted vase, albeit of a different size, is found in the collection of Dorabji Tata, which was bequeathed to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sanghralaya (CSMVS).

“Want to see a mysterious coincidence?” Chatterjee asked. Zooming into an image of Tata’s vase from CSMVS on his phone screen, he said, “Both [Mangaldas and Tata’s vases] were chipped in exactly the same place.” While the Nanking crackleware from Mangaldas’s estate still bore the chip, the Tata vase on display at the museum has been restored.

Mangaldas’s sons, Tribhovandas and Purushottamdas, carried his legacy forward, adding more properties to the estate and also building public amenities like theatres. They were impeccable collectors, too. A 17-inch metal mantel clock surmounted by a turbanned horseman bears the mark of renowned French inventor Japy Frères, who was one of the major manufacturers of clock movements in the second half of the 19th century. It was bought by a collector for ₹1.2 lakh.

Sujan, a descendant of Purushottamdas, recalls her mother and aunts swapping stories of their ancestors. “They were very curious people and studied science, mastered the English language, spoke Gujarati at home and had friends and acquaintances from all strata of society, castes and creed. I think the collection also reflects this cosmopolitanism.”