Calcutta, June 13 :    Calcutta, June 13:  On the eve of the Bonham's auction of Modern and Contemporary Paintings from the Indian Sub-Continent held on June 12, in London, we were sitting in the convivial andarmahal of Prakash and Sumitra Kejriwal's Chitrakoot Art Gallery. There was a close-knit group of art connoisseurs, with art collector Prashant Tulsyan monitoring the prices on the phone and Shyamal Dutta Roy wondering how his watercolours were doing in the auction. It was triumph of sorts for Bengal art. Hemen Mazumdar's typical woman won top honours at £17,000. Ganesh Pyne's Nagamani, a significant work by him in tempera showing a snake with a diamond in a desert landscape, fetched £12,000, outstripping M.F. Husain's colourful Holi, with a similar expected price, which did not find a buyer despite the artist himself being present at the auction. A couple of characteristic Jamini Roys went in the £2000-to-£3000 range. The ones that had been described in some detail by the organisers were the sure buys - S.G. Thakar Singh's At the Temple Door, which had been exhibited in London in 1934. Pakistani painter Chughtai raked in the honours with Vanity, a line wash and watercolour on paper depicting a beautiful woman looking into the mirror, going for £15,000, and his Rehana Looking at the Id Moon fetching £10,000. Bendre's vibrant Ganesha shared one of the top slots at £15,000. The buyers loved their Anjolie Ela Menon and K.K. Hebbar and Souza, but not Gopal Ghose. Not many whom we talked to could throw light on artist Soren Sen, whose Towards the Taj went for £4,800. The total take was the equivalent of Rs 1 crore, 15 lakhs, 92,000, with nearly 50 per cent of the collection not coming under the hammer. Dr Prakash Kejriwal attributes this to an earlier exhibition at the Rossi and Rossi gallery. I recall an earlier auction in New York of contemporary Indian art, from the collection of Chester and Davida Herwitz. Being one of the first of its kind, it had generated considerable enthusiasm amongst American buyers. Husain's presence there had made for some excitement with those present. But once again, Ganesh Pyne had scored with an unexpected record price for his work.