A set of 12 paintings by Rabindranath Tagore went under the hammer today, sold off for a whopping 1.6 million pounds in London.The art works of the Indian Nobel Laureate massively exceeded the pre-sale combined estimate of 250,000pounds at a Sotheby's auction.A Sotheby's spokesperson said, one of the paintings, an untitled portrait of a woman fetched as much as 313,250 pounds, The news of the auction last month had led some art lovers and politicians in India to seek intervention by the Indian government. They said the paintings were national heritage and should be brought back to the country.West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asking him to take steps to bring the paintings back home.The identity of the buyers of the paintings have not been disclosed yet.The sale of the Tagore paintings were the highlight of Sotheby's annual Indian art sale today.The art works have been housed in the Dartington Hall Trust in Devon for 71 years, since the time Tagore gifted them to his friends — Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst — of Dartington Hall who have now decided to sell them.Tagore painted some 2,000 works in the later phase of his life, 1,500 of which are housed in Shantiniketan.Sotheby's described the paintings as a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity to acquire this standout collection bythe national poet.