The mid-week art opening at Gallery Espace was held during one of the coldest snaps in decades, but the event was thronged by the city’s cultural mandarins, elbows jostling and wine spilling as they pushed past each other to view paintings from the country’s leading contemporary artists.

The enthusiasts were not attending an opening in New York or London. They were in New Delhi which, along with the rest of the country, has seen an explosion of interest in Indian modern art. As Indians at home and abroad acquire more wealth, they have been snapping up paintings from the country’s modern artists, driving up valuations – to stratospheric levels in some cases – in the past year or two.