The Star that Beckons is the first of three canvases with the same title, which Jehangir Sabavala painted over the course of three decades. The Star that Beckons II and III were painted in 1999. The present lot, the earliest exploration of the theme, was painted in 1968, and is arguably the finest, emerging from a time when the young artist was looking for his own voice. Through the 1960s, Sabavala made a conscious attempt to transcend the principles of Cubism which he had learnt at the Academie Andre Lhote a decade earlier. He was aware of "the dangers of an over-reliance on fragmentation... [and] began his trek, his outward spiralling towards the vast horizons lit by a cloudy incandescence that have held his unwavering attention." (Ranjit Hoskote, The Crucible of Painting: The Art of Jehangir Sabavala, Mumbai: Eminence Designs Pvt. Ltd., 2005, p. 86) The Star that Beckons is evocative of the artist's own journey, guided by his own intuition and the desire for a personal identity. The 1984 Lalit Kala monograph on the artist describes the present lot in its fullness: "With this painting of 1968, begins Jehangir's mature style that is to ride (through variations) full curve into his present work... The bonding is softer, more nuanced. Space and light combine in sensuous curves of wet sand and of sand-coloured sea. Palette is down to blond and grey. Space, light and shadow step forward. The traveller turns his back on us to the miles that lie ahead. As if to announce incipient allegory, the pilgrim theme surfaces. Denuded dreamscape surfaces." (Pria Devi, Jehangir Sabavala, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1984, p. 6)

The painting, with its stark landscape and receding horizon, muted colours and haunting absences, draws from a range of artistic, religious and literary references. "The Star that Beckons (1968) - marks a variation on The Journey of the Magi of five years before... the solitary prophet here turns his back on us and walks into the painting, staff resolutely in hand, towards the tantalisingly distant, seemingly unattainable horizon." (Ranjit Hoskote, Pilgrim, Exile, Sorcerer: The Painterly Evolution of Jehangir Sabavala, Mumbai: Eminence Designs Pvt. Ltd., 1998, p. 108) Sabavala's lone human figure makes a treacherous journey guided by a distant star, and the canvas is weighed down with emotional content that far exceeds the physicality of this minimal, pared down canvas.


The de Trafford family trace their roots to Lancashire in England. In 1967 Dermot de Trafford (who later became the head of the family as Sir Dermot de Trafford) and his wife Patricia visited India to attend a conference. They met Jehangir Sabavala in what was then called Bombay. He presented them with a book of his work, published by Sadanga, inscribing it to the collectors. This book is included as part of this lot. A friendship developed and subsequently, they purchased the present lot, The Star That Beckons directly from him. The painting was taken to their country house, fondly called The House in the Wood, near Beaulieu in Hampshire. It has hung in the drawing room ever since.


Jehangir Sabavala was an iconoclast, an unusual persona on the Indian art scene. His interests lay in a myriad of "isms," from Cubism to Existentialism, from Romanticism to Spiritualism, and yet, he resisted being tied down to any particular philosophy. In spite of his decidedly European art training and intellectual leaning, as the film-maker Arun Khophar put it, "People who only knew him as a 'Westernised' person, did not know how deep was his knowledge of the Indian landscape, its trees, rocks, ravines and waterfalls." (Arun Khopkar, "Colours of Absence," The Hindu Magazine, 10 September 2011, online) His art remains in a space that is universal and timeless, primarily because he dealt with the concerns of the human condition. He stated, "I think, as a painter, in all those hours spent alone, you are not only thinking of the painting. You are thinking of yourself, of death, of mortality, of tragedies and happiness." (Artist interview with Yashodhara Dalmia, quoted in Anindita Ghose, "In His Eternal Quest, Sabavala Applied Precepts of Cubism," Live Mint, 3 September 2011, online)

The 1960s and '70s were a period in which he had begun to break away from the formalism of structured Cubism in order to integrate allegory and certain nuances of mysticism into his work. The Star that Beckons, painted in 1968, embodies many of Sabavala's overriding concerns. In a revealing statement to the American art critic George Butcher in 1964, Sabavala wrote, "No longer am I satisfied with the juxtaposition of planes, the search for rare colour, the almost total denigration of the unpremeditated. It is the intangible which is now my goal. Space and light, and an element of mystery begin to permeate my canvasses." Not unlike the Star in the title of the present lot, it was Light which beckoned Sabavala. A luminescence began to permeate his serene canvases.

European traditions of landscape painting made a distinct impact on Sabavala's understanding of form and composition. Unlike the English and French Romantic painters who focussed on pastoral scenes or on taming the wilderness that was Nature, German Romanticism was unique in its almost cerebral desire to understand nature. This inquiry must have resonated with Sabavala's quest Caspar David Friedrich??'s iconic 1808-1810 painting titled The Monk by the Sea offers insight into Sabavala's search for divinity. In both paintings, a lone figure, the Ruckenfigur, is placed with his back to the viewer, on a lonely journey into a vast, still landscape with a horizon which seems to be a mere stand-in for infinity. There is no scale, no structural reference to suggest any notion of humanity or narrative possibilities. As a result, one is left contemplating the immensity of nature. Sabavala masters the art of minimalism in this canvas, creating an atmosphere that inspires awe.

Whether or not the journey is religious, as connotated by the beckoning star, or secular, in keeping with his portrayals of pilgrim in exile, Sabavala's subtle canvas presents a world of intrigue and introspection that lies beyond the merely mortal structures of the many "isms" that frame such conversations.