Paintings under ₹1 lakh on Rooftop: 7 original Indian artworks

The smallest painting on this list is 15 by 11 inches, about the size of an open magazine. The largest is five feet tall. The small one costs more. At this budget, size stops telling you much about price, and the best paintings under ₹1 lakh on Rooftop show this clearly. This list brings together seven originals by Gond, Bhil and Warli painters. They run from smallest to largest, so you can watch size and price part ways.

What ₹1 lakh buys in Indian art

At this level you pay for the hand as much as for the surface. Several painters here have long records. Kaushal Prasad Tekam trained under Gond masters including Anand Singh Shyam. Sadashiv Mhase is the elder son of Padma Shri Jivya Soma Mhase, the painter whose family is most closely tied to the revival of Warli painting. Ram Singh Bhavor is the grand-nephew of Padma Shri Bhuri Bai.

You also get room. Three of the seven measure four feet or more on the long side, and a fourth falls an inch short.

These traditions also sell well above this budget at auction. Rooftop's artist pages record a painting by Gariba Singh Tekam selling for ₹3,30,108 at Saffronart in 2020, and Jodhaiya Bai's Untitled realising ₹48,00,000 at Pundole's in March 2025. Neither figure says anything about what a painting on this list will be worth later. We would not buy at this level for resale. Buy the painting you want to see every morning.

How this list is ordered

Smallest first, by area. As you go down, the canvases grow, but the prices jump around. A dense sheet of paper by a senior painter can cost more than a canvas fifteen times its size.

The paintings

1. Forest Animals by Kaushal Prasad Tekam

Four wild boars push together so closely that their bodies merge into one mass. Each faces a different way, with leaf-shaped ears, round eyes and a curled tail. Tekam paints them in bands of brown, ochre, orange, blue and mauve. Every band is filled with rows of short dashes, set on a warm peach ground.

Try counting the dashes in a single band. Thousands of separate marks cover a sheet you could hold in two hands, and that is what you are paying for here.

Tekam was born in Patangarh, a Gond village where, he says, trees were ancestral beings and birds were messengers long before he held a brush. He is best known for layered blacks, building depth by changing shade and density. Here he works in earth tones instead.

Hang it at eye level in a study or beside a reading chair. This is a painting for close looking.

2. Forest Birds by Kala Bai Shyam

Four creatures again, packed close again, and a completely different hand. Kala Bai Shyam builds her birds from chequerboard blocks of fine stripes, some horizontal and some vertical, in green with yellow and orange with pink. Two large birds spread their wings. Two smaller ones tuck in between. The stripes make each body look woven, like cloth.

Hung near Forest Animals, the two make a small lesson in Gond painting. Both painters pack four creatures into one tight group. Tekam fills his with dashes and Shyam fills hers with stripes, and the two groups feel nothing alike.

At 22 x 28 inches, it suits a bedroom wall or the space above a desk.

3. Village Community by Sadashiv Mhase

Nothing sits at the centre of this painting. Sadashiv Mhase spreads a whole Warli settlement across the surface, with huts, trees and small white figures, each busy with its own job. Your eye drifts from one task to the next. The village itself is the subject.

Sadashiv's figures keep the spare, lively line his father made famous. He also teaches the Warli course by the Mhase family, which starts from the circle, triangle and line that build every Warli figure. The family's younger generation appears in our list of paintings under ₹10K, where Pravin Mhase, Jivya Soma Mhase's grandson, has three small works.

The earthen ground gives the painting the warm, uneven feel of a village wall. Hang it in a living room that people walk through every day. Each time, someone will find a figure they missed.

4. Peacocks and Deer Under the Night Sky by Ram Singh Bhavor

It is night. Ram Singh Bhavor paints the whole ground black. On it, a large tree holds peacocks in its branches while deer gather underneath. Every form is built from fine dots in bright colour, so the animals glow against the dark.

Compare it with Lado Bai's Tree of Life & Human in our paintings under ₹50K list, where a deer runs across clean white paper. Bhavor turns the lights off, and the dots carry all the colour.

Bhavor took to drawing early and has painted seriously since 2010. His work has been shown at Bharat Bhavan and the Indira Gandhi Manav Sangrahalaya in Bhopal, and at the Tribal Museum in Mysore.

Dark grounds need light. Give this canvas a well-lit wall, because in a dim corner the black swallows the dots.

5. Joyful Cows - Gau Charai by Sahdev Pusham

Gau charai means grazing the cows, and this is the herd on its daily walk out to pasture. Sahdev Pusham spreads it across a soft blue ground. He builds each cow from fine lines and dots and gives every one its own pattern, so no two animals match. They turn and overlap as they go.

At 50 inches wide, the canvas lets the herd spread out, and your eye moves across it the way a herd moves across a field. It sits well above a three-seater sofa with room on either side. Measure yours first.

If you like Pusham's line but want a smaller canvas, his The Gathering of Deer Beneath a Tree, at 30 x 36 inches, falls in our under-₹50K price range.

6. The World of Jungle by Brajbhushan Dhurve

Find the tree in the middle first. Elephants are climbing it to enjoy the view. That small joke sets the tone for the whole canvas. A large elephant stands at the centre, animals crowd in from both sides, and tall trees carry birds and butterflies in their branches. Dense dot work gives every surface depth.

At 67 inches, this is the longest painting in our price-band series, more than five and a half feet from end to end. It needs a long wall, such as a dining room, a lobby or the space above a long console. Plan the framing with care. Once framed, a canvas this size has to fit through your front door and up your stairs.

7. Turtle's Tale of Life by Suresh Kumar Dhurve

In Gond thought, the turtle carries the world on its back. Suresh Kumar Dhurve paints that world. A spider rests on the turtle's shell, and four fish form its limbs. Trees grow around it, small shoals of fish swim against yellow, and two suns sit in the top corners to mark the day. Blue water fills most of the ground, and a strip of green land holds houses and birds.

Dhurve is best known for birds. His Birds in the Forest, in our under-₹50K list, is a tall canvas of almost nothing else. Here he pulls back to show water, land, sky, people and animals together.

This is the largest work here by area, five feet tall and four feet wide. It needs a wall you can step back from. A double-height living room or a stairwell landing gives it the distance it asks for.

Will it fit? Sizes in feet

Painting	Size (inches)	Longest side	Where it fits
Forest Animals	15 x 11	1 ft 3 in	Study, beside a reading chair
Forest Birds	22 x 28	2 ft 4 in	Bedroom, above a desk
Village Community	27 x 39	3 ft 3 in	A living room wall people pass daily
Peacocks and Deer Under the Night Sky	47 x 36	3 ft 11 in	A well-lit wall
Joyful Cows - Gau Charai	50 x 37	4 ft 2 in	Above a sofa
The World of Jungle	67 x 37	5 ft 7 in	A long dining or lobby wall
Turtle's Tale of Life	48 x 60	5 ft	A double-height wall or landing

How to buy at this level

Ask before you buy. Every Rooftop listing has an enquiry button. Use it to ask for daylight photos, close-ups of the surface and how the work will be packed.

Get a framing quote first. A five-foot canvas costs far more to frame than a sheet of paper, and that cost belongs in your budget from the start.

Check the wall as well as the space. A large framed canvas is heavy. Hang it from two points with proper wall anchors, never from a single nail.

Mix sizes. One big canvas and one small work on paper sit better together than two big canvases fighting for the same wall.

Buying on Rooftop

Each work here is a single original, and each listing shows one piece left, so once it sells it is gone. Orders cannot be cancelled and items cannot be returned, so confirm the size and the route into your home first. Rooftop ships with insurance, every artwork comes with a certificate of authenticity, and the artist earns a royalty on the sale. Prices on the site can change, so check the current price on the listing before you order.

Caring for large canvases and works on paper

Rooftop's Gond listings advise a cool, dry spot away from direct sunlight and moisture, UV-protective glass for framed work, and a gentle dusting with a soft brush or cloth. That covers five of the seven paintings here.

For the Bhil canvas, Rooftop's listing suggests a soft dry cloth and no harsh chemicals.

Rooftop's Warli listings ask buyers to keep cow dung grounds out of direct sun, to dust them gently with a soft cloth and to keep water and cleaning products away.

Forest Animals and Forest Birds are on paper. Frame both under glass and keep them flat.

Learn the forms behind the paintings

Rooftop's online art courses include Gond with Venkat Raman Singh Shyam and Bhil with Padma Shri Bhuri Bai, Ram Singh Bhavor's grand-aunt. Sadashiv Mhase teaches in the Warli course linked above. For more of these painters at lower prices, start with our paintings under ₹50K, or browse all paintings on Rooftop.

The smallest painting here costs the most. At ₹1 lakh, you are paying for the hand that made the marks, and a 15-inch sheet can hold more of it than a five-foot canvas.

References

1. Rooftop listing, Forest Animals. https://rooftopapp.com/shop/paintings-indigenous-art-tribal-art/forest-animals
2. Rooftop listing, Forest Birds. https://rooftopapp.com/shop/paintings-indigenous-art-tribal-art/forest-birds
3. Rooftop listing, Village Community by Sadashiv Mhase. https://rooftopapp.com/shop/paintings-indigenous-art-tribal-art/village-community-by-sadashiv-mhase
4. Rooftop listing, Peacocks and Deer Under the Night Sky. https://rooftopapp.com/shop/paintings-indigenous-art-tribal-art/meeting-of-peacocks-and-deer-at-night
5. Rooftop listing, Joyful Cows - Gau Charai by Sahdev Pusham. https://rooftopapp.com/shop/paintings-indigenous-art-tribal-art/joyful-cows-gau-charai-by-sahdev-pusham
6. Rooftop listing, The World of Jungle. https://rooftopapp.com/shop/paintings-indigenous-art-tribal-art/the-world-of-jungle
7. Rooftop listing, Turtle's Tale of Life. https://rooftopapp.com/shop/paintings-indigenous-art-tribal-art/the-turtles-realm-natures-balance
8. Rooftop listing, A Couple of Black Elephants (Gariba Singh Tekam bio). https://rooftopapp.com/shop/paintings-indigenous-art-tribal-art/a-couple-of-black-elephant
9. Rooftop artist page, Jodhaiya Bai. https://rooftopapp.com/artists/jodhaiya-bai
10. Rooftop, Warli course by the Mhase family. https://rooftopapp.com/courses/warli-course-by-mhase-family
11. Rooftop, Courses. https://rooftopapp.com/courses