Christie’s delivers royal result with Aga Khan sale
3 min read · 31 Oct 2025
The late Aga Khan and his wife’s collection scored an A+ on the HENI Auction Index when it went under the hammer at Christie’s London on October 28.
The collection built by Prince Sadruddin, the global leader of the Ismaili Muslims, and his second wife, Catherine, overtook the auction house’s A-grade sales of Roy Lichtenstein and his wife Dorothy's personal collection last month.
Christie's single-collection sale this week is on a par with Sotheby’s A+ sale of Surrealist art from Pauline Karpidas’ London home in September.
Christie's Aga Khan sale scored an A+ overtaking the Lichtensteins' A score in September and on a par with Sotheby's Karpidas sale that month.
A miniature by the Mughal artist Basawan was the star lot this week. A Family of Cheetahs in a Rocky Landscape (around 1575-80) sold for $13.6m (with premium), a record for traditional Indian or Islamic painting at auction.
The Aga Khan sale eclipsed other recent single-collection sales on the percentage of lots selling above their high estimates, such as the Basawan and a portrait of a Mughal shah by Dust Muhammad the Painter, which also soared.
The sale totaled nearly $61m, perhaps taking the auction house by surprise and suggesting demand for Indian, Persian and Ottoman-era art was significantly stronger than it had anticipated.
Typically, a major single-collection sale generates $100m from around 100 lots traded. Although the Aga Khan sale produced a lower total revenue, the result was in line in terms of the number of lots offered, 95 in total.
The average hammer to mid-estimate ratio was in between the Karpidas and Lichtensteins’ sales, at almost 3, which is 50% higher than typical and means works hammered on average at 3 times the average of their low and high pre-sale estimates.
The HENI Auction Index is a unique benchmark of performance based on 10+ metrics that looks beyond the standard measure of success based on sales total and sell-through rate.
The Aga Khan and his wife’s miniatures and other paintings, which he began collecting in the 1960s, were among their personal favorites and decorated the walls of their Lake Geneva chateau.
The success of the sale was a happy marriage of a growing demand for Indian and Persian art, royal provenance and savvy marketing. Ahead of the successful sale in London, highlights went on show at Christie’s New York, Zurich and Dubai.
The Aga Khan sales total of $61m was smaller than typical major single-collection sales that total around $100m.
The 95 lots traded in the Aga Khan sale was in line with the total number of lots in other major single-collection sales.
Christie's Aga Khan sale outpaced other recent single-collection sales on the percentage of lots selling above their high estimates.
The average hammer to mid-estimate ratio of 3 was in between the Lichtensteins and Karpidas sales.
Methodology: for how the HENI Auction Index classifies sales, see here
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