Maqbool Fida Husain (b. 1915)

in good condition, paint applied thickly to the canvas with areas of heavy white impasto with protruding eye, browns and greens deeper and richer than catalogue illustration, as viewed
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Husain has had a fascination with horses from an early age. As a young boy his grandfather used to take him to the local farrier in Indore where he saw horses of all types: the thoroughbreds, the polo ponies, the cavalry horses and the common horse that pulled the local carts. Husain has returned to the subject of the horse repeatedly  in his work, his horses are wild, symbols of immense raw power, the raised hooves and heaving flank all suggestive of their pent up primal energy.

'The horses are rampant or galloping; the manes, the fury , the working buttocks the prancing legs, and the strong neighing heads with dilated nostrils are blocks of color which are vivid or tactile or are propelled in their significant progression by strokes of the brush or sweeps of the palette knife. The activity depicted is transformed in the activity of paint.'  (E Alkazi, M. F. Husain The Modern Artist and Tradition, New Delhi, 1978, p. 3).

'Husain's horses are subterranean creatures. Their nature is not intellectualized: it is rendered as sensation or as abstract movement, with a capacity to stir up vague premonitions and passions, in a mixture of ritualistic fear and exultant anguish. He had first encountered the figure of the horse in the tazias of his youth, in the religiously imbued story of the martyrdom of Imam Husain.  The challenging horse of ancient Hindu princes, the Aswamedha, heightened in his imagination the heroic, and therefore to him ultimately tragic, character of the riderless figure.' (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1971, pp. 43-44).