The only known oil portrait of Gandhi is up for auction: he was once stabbed

Squatting, head uncovered (though wrapped in his blanket), with one finger raised and his mouth half-open as if about to speak, or perhaps smile. It's a rare oil portrait of the Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi , famous for his practice of nonviolent civil disobedience, painted in 1931 in the United Kingdom. It will now be auctioned in London in the second week of next July.

Over the years, various paintings, drawings, and sketches of the famous Father of the Nation have inspired and circulated around the world, but according to Bonhams auction house, this is the only oil portrait (by British artist Clare Leighton) for which Gandhi posed. It was made when the leader traveled to London for the Second Round Table Conference, held to discuss constitutional forms for India and address its demands for self-government.

According to Bonhams, Clare Leighton was one of the few artists allowed into Gandhi's office and had the opportunity to sit and paint his likeness on multiple occasions. The works remained in the artist's collection until her death in 1989 in the United States, and then passed to her family. She met Gandhi through her partner (and political journalist), Henry Noel Brailsford, a staunch supporter of the Indian independence movement .

After the portrait was painted, Gandhi's personal secretary, Mahadev Desai , wrote to Leighton saying, "Many of my friends have seen it at the Albany Gallery and thought it very good ." There is apparently no other public record of the portrait being displayed anywhere else until 1978, when the Boston Public Library organized an exhibition of Leighton's works.

He was allegedly injured in a knife attack in the 1970s in the US.

Although the artist's family claims it may have been on display in the United States in the 1970s, it was allegedly damaged there in a knife attack. A label attached to the back panel of the portrait indicates that it was restored by the Lyman Allyn Museum Conservation Laboratory in Connecticut in 1974. Details of the alleged attack are unclear: according to Bonhams, it was carried out by a right-wing Hindu activist.

Hindu radicals in India accuse Gandhi of betraying them, and blame him for the division of India and the bloodshed that marked the Partition, which saw the creation of India and Pakistan after independence in 1947. He was shot dead on 30 January 1948 during a prayer meeting by Nathuram Godse, an activist of right-wing nationalist groups.

Squatting, head uncovered (though wrapped in his blanket), with one finger raised and his mouth half-open as if about to speak, or perhaps smile. It's a rare oil portrait of the Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi , famous for his practice of nonviolent civil disobedience, painted in 1931 in the United Kingdom. It will now be auctioned in London in the second week of next July.