Another auction of Chandigarh heritage, this time in Milan

Amarjot Kaur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 20

A pair of Jeanneret-designed kangaroo chairs, dating way back to the ’50s, is all set to go under the hammer, this time in Italy on September 22. The estimated price of these chairs, in wood and wicker, is pegged between Rs5.62 lakh and Rs7.79 lakh (6,500 Euros and 9,000 Euros).

Italy’s love for UT furniture

This year, six chairs and a sofa were sold for Rs18.46 lakh in Italy on March 24. On December 2, 2020, another six items of the city’s heritage furniture were auctioned for about Rs55 lakh in Milan.

The auction of the chairs, which are part of the city’s heritage items, has been red-flagged by Ajay Jagga, a member of UT’s Heritage Items Protection Cell. In his representation, sent to S Jaishankar, India’s External Affairs Minister; Dr Neena Malhotra, Ambassador of India to Italy; and Dario Franceschini, Minister of Culture, Government of Italy, Jagga has demanded that the chairs be returned to India.

Citing1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property, Jagga highlighted that the process of returning (cultural property) is further established by the UN through two conventions: 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.

In his representation, Jagga wrote that the auction of the two kangroo chairs was in violation of the MHA (Government of India) orders (dated 22 February, 2011). “The Ministry of Home Affairs banned the export of Chandigarh heritage furniture, a decade ago,” he wrote.

He expressed an emergent need to get the matter examined from the law-enforcing agencies of Milan, as to how these items reached the auction house. He asked: “Whether importers came to India on a tourist visas or business visas? What documents they attached with the consignment, while exporting them abroad?”

Considering that the United Nations is also supporting the countries on the issue of cultural trafficking, Jagga also sent a communication to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Belgium.