Ambadas Khobragade (1922 - 2012)

These remarkable paintings belong to a German family collection. The collector was the daughter of a middle-class Indian Catholic Goan family from Bombay, who now lives in Germany. She was a member of The Bombay Choral Society and visited every exhibition she could, developing an early interest in art and music. After studying and working as a teacher, the collector reached her twenties and there was an expectation for her to marry. Whilst at one of the Bombay society parties, she met her future husband, a German pharmaceutical executive. Before the couple moved to Europe, the Indian lady wished to take a few mementos with her to remind her of India. The collector's instinct was to use the money to buy art and so she made her way to Chemould Gallery in Bombay, where she met Maqbool Fida Husain. She got to know him and was fascinated by his work, subsequently acquiring several of his paintings. She first encountered this Gaitonde painting at Chemould and was instantly struck by its beauty, but having made a number of recent purchases she declined to acquire it. However the memory of the painting lived on in her mind, and for her it came to epitomise her love of her homeland and she felt that she was destined to own it. So she went back to the gallery only to find that it was reserved to a gentleman who resided in Malabar Hill. The gentleman had taken the painting on loan. Coincidently he not only resided in the same area of Bombay as herself but also in the very same building. Determined to have the painting, she visited the gentleman and pleaded with him to give her the work. He soon recognised how much the painting meant to her and let her have it. Two years later, during the mid-1960s, the collector moved to Germany with her husband and the paintings have remained in the collection of her family ever since.