{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":56585,"auction_id":110,"set_id":144,"lot_number":"160","artist":"Fernando Amorsolo (1892 - 1972)","title":"Market Scene","starting_price":4800000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1945 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"13” x 17” (33 cm x 43 cm)","property":null,"coa":"Accompanied by a certificate issued by Mrs. Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo \nconfirming the authenticity of this lot","provenance":"Acquired directly from the artist by Dr. Richard K.C. Lee, the President of \nthe Board of Health of Hawaii","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"1945 saw the end of the Second World War in the Pacific, and Manila was among the most brutalized cities during the war. Also the single largest urban battle fought by the American forces, Manila found itself in a month-long battle that saw the deaths of at least a hundred thousand civilians as well as the destruction of its architectural and cultural heritage amid the American indiscriminate f irepower. <br /><br />At the center of this mayhem, among the many citizens caught in the crossfire, is the aged Fernando Amorsolo. <br /><br />His daughter Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo recalls her father’s years during the war in her article Remembering Papa. “During the Japanese occupation, we were living in Azcarraga (Now Claro M. Recto), which was very near Far Eastern University, then a Japanese garrison,” she said. “Papa sketched war scenes from his window or sometimes on the rooftop to catch a quick glimpse of the planes f ighting in the sky.” <br /><br />He diligently painted through the years despite his steadily depleting stash of insulin. When the war ended, American businessman and US Intelligence Chick Parsons made rounds at the war-worn city in search of the sick and the injured. Among the injured and in need of insulin is Amorsolo, languishing in the dim corner of his studio. However, this piece, created the same year as the country’s liberation, is free of the traces of tragedy that laced through his wartime pieces. Amorsolo returns almost immediately to his sun-drenched canvas, to his Filipino subjects, and to his rural scenery. This abrupt and immediate return to normal may seem uncouth, but that is far from the truth. <br /><br />“Amorsolo’s penchant for depicting an idealized world is viewed by his critics as the work of someone who has never experienced pain in his life,” is written in his biography<br /><br />on his Fernando C. Amorsolo Art Foundation website. “It is apparent that the artist’s preference was not due to a lack of exposure to the ills of society but to a conscious effort to hang on to what is pure and good before the harsh realities of the world shattered his peaceful life in the countryside.” <br /><br />Indeed, Amorsolo’s loyalty to his subject matter is more than stubbornness. “There is always something beautiful in all things around us and nature. So why not recreate God’s creation through [my] canvas?” Mrs. Sylvia recalls her father saying. Indeed, as he portrays the bucolic Philippine countryside with the utmost admiration, there is a palpable affection that bled into his body of work. This reverence for the pastoral beauty makes Amorsolo one of the most, if not the most, recognizable artists in Philippine art history. (Hannah Valiente)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":6500000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":6500000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":7810400,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":60369,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/110/144/lot/160.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":60502,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/110/144/lot/160a.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":60500,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/110/144/lot/160b.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":159,"next":161,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}