Jasjit Sandhu, assistant to Khanna till a couple of years ago when the two fell out, said, ‘We must have painted at least two or three works with minor differences here and there titled Woman with Flower. I seem to remember painting one of these versions entirely on my own. If the gallery happened to have bought that one from Mr Khanna, it was genuine at the time. But Khanna sahib probably regards it as a fake now.’ Sandhu sounded amused at the idea. Then he added, ‘If Khanna sahib is calling that painting a fake, then he would have to declare all the works he painted till two years ago fake to a greater or lesser degree, because I had a hand in all of them.’

The art world has expressed misgivings at Khanna's revelation. Some artists say he has cut off his nose to spite not only his own face but the face of the art market itself. Hereafter, a collector desirous of buying any works, including Khanna's, will think many times before doing so for fear of discovering it is a fake. It is, after all, the idea of that elusive thing called an ‘original’ that makes the art market go round.

It is not a secret that popular artists from the last century, like Jamini Roy and Raja Ravi Varma, appointed assistants to help them fulfil the increasing demand for their art, a practice that continues with some leading artists even today. It is also not a secret that these guru–disciple pairs break up at some point owing to ego clashes or differences. However, gurus take great care that the practice is not revealed, particularly since they themselves have trained their disciples to copy their style. Against this background, Ranjan Khanna's act of taking the lid off a carefully maintained silence is likely to create ripples in the art world for some time to come. Every collector will henceforth be besieged by doubts about any work he plans to buy. Was this done by the artist or his assistant?

At a time when artists are making more money than ever before, some of them now find themselves in a situation that is likely to rob them of sleep.

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