The House
Arts Bespoke is a Mumbai house dealing in modern and contemporary Indian art. It sells privately, values in writing, and stands behind what it places.
A collector rarely regrets the price. What they regret is finding out, years later, that the history they were told was incomplete — a restoration nobody mentioned, an ownership gap between two dates, an attribution that softens under scrutiny.
This house is arranged around that failure. Every work is catalogued the day it arrives and given an inventory number that stays with it for life. Its ownership history is written down. Its condition is photographed and described, including the parts that are not flattering. Where the record has a gap, the gap is stated. All of it is shown to the buyer before a price is agreed, because a document produced after payment is not disclosure, it is defence.
We deal privately. There is no public catalogue and no salesroom. A work that does not sell here carries no record of having failed, which matters a great deal to anyone who may want to sell it again in five years.
AB / OFFICES
Client Advisory
Every enquiry arrives here and is answered the same day. It handles acquisitions, sales, valuations and the questions that come before any of them. When a matter needs the Managing Partner, it is passed up rather than across.
The Registrar
Condition reports, certificates of authenticity, movement notices and the inventory register. Every document a work generates carries the same reference number, so any desk can answer for it years later.
Valuations & Estates
Insurance valuations, succession, and division between heirs. This is the work that outlives a collector, and it is why families return to the same house across generations.
The Managing Partner
Arnav Agarwal signs at four moments: the first meeting, the price, the contract, and any dispute. An art house where nobody's name is on the transaction is one that cannot be held to it.
AB / STANDARDS
Every work the house sells has an ownership history we can follow. Every figure we put in writing arrives with the comparable results behind it. Every attribution is described exactly as strongly as the evidence supports it, and where it rests on opinion, however respectable, we say whose.
We do not deal in antiquities. Under the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act 1972, an object more than a hundred years old — seventy-five for manuscripts and documents — is an antiquity, must be registered with the prescribed registering officer, and may not leave India without a permit from the central government. Our field is modern and contemporary work, which falls outside that definition. If what you have is an antiquity, we will say so and point you to the right authority rather than quietly handle it.
The house is small by choice. Fewer works, each one fully documented, is the whole proposition.
Enquiries
Whether you are buying, selling, or simply want to know what you already own, the Client Advisory desk will answer today.
Write to Client Advisory