Artist Manjit Bawa with one of his paintings. A Telegraph picture

Indian contemporary art is going under the hammer with increasing regularity all over the world. However, fakes are turning at these auctions with alarming frequency.

It was rumoured that fakes of Satyajit Ray’s sketches had been up for sale at a recent Osian’s auction. A painting, purportedly by Manjit Bawa, which would have been auctioned at Sotheby’s sale in New York on March 22, had to be withdrawn recently when the agent for the auction house received complaints about its authenticity and fortunately acted on it.

Amitava Das, who was trained at Garhi in Delhi at the same time as Bawa, had noticed the painting in the Sotheby’s catalogue. “I know his work very well. To begin with, the medium was gouache which I don’t think he ever used. Again mounted board was not something he would have used either. The paint was very slipshod. He would never have done slipshod work. I am very sure it was not his,” said Das.

Unfortunately, Manjit Bawa has been lying in a coma. So Das complained to Ina Puri, who has been handling Bawa’s work for quite some time.Puri says the colours of the painting were dripping. This is impossible for someone who paints miniatures. “I wish auction houses would be more careful about finding out the provenance of a work before putting it up for sale,” says Puri. The painting is of a head wearing a black scarf.

Jogen Chowdhury described it as “doubtful work”. It should have been properly checked, he added. “I always authenticate my own work. I have a dozen paintings which are fakes,” he said.

Dubida Pundole, who is Sotheby’s agent in India, said over the telephone from New York that the dealer who supplied the work “sounded very convincing”. Although this painting has been withdrawn, unless art auction houses take the real business of fakes seriously there is just no way out. Checking the provenance of a work is of primary importance.