{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":60820,"auction_id":203,"set_id":236,"lot_number":"109","artist":"Vicente Manansala (1910 - 1981)","title":"Procession (Nuestra Señora del Carmen\nde San Sebastian)","starting_price":300000,"signed_dated":"signed (lower left) ca.1952","medium":"watercolor on paper","size":"21 1/4\" x 15\" (54 cm x 38 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Private collection, USA","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"This watercolor work serves as—plausibly—one of Vicente Manansala's several studies for his 1952 painting of the same title, which was exhibited at the Philippine Art Gallery in December 1954 in the artist's first solo show in the storied haven for Filipino modernists. The work at hand features the only all-steel church building in the country and all of Asia, the San Sebastian Church, formally known as the Minor Basilica and Parish of San Sebastian, located at the eastern end of R. Hidalgo Street in Quiapo, Manila. Notably, the San Sebastian was the first church in the Philippines to be declared a Minor Basilica by the Vatican, elevating it to the prestigious status by Pope Leo XIII on June 24, 1890, more than a year before it would even be completed on August 16, 1891, and consecrated by then-Manila archbishop Bernardino Nozaleda, O.P. <br><br> Procession depicts the old January feast, known as the Fiesta Tradicional, of the Nuestra Señora del Carmen de San Sebastian, which was practiced from 1691 until its suspension sometime in the late 1970s to early 1980s, following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In this work, Manansala depicts the carroza of the Virgen del Carmen, venerated as the \"Queen of Quiapo,\" as it leaves San Sebastian and is paraded throughout the bustling district of Quiapo, with devotees solemnly joining the procession. The Fiesta Tradicional was revived in 2018 as part of the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the arrival in the Philippines of the image of Nuestra Señora del Carmen, brought by the Spanish Recoletos from Mexico in 1618, led by Fray Rodrigo de San Miguel. <br><br> The San Sebastian's iconic steel façade and the Gothic Revival openwork towers figure prominently in the work, rendered by Manansala in a crown-like configuration that seemingly alludes to the title of the Virgen del Carmen as the queen of Manila's socio-cultural, commercial, and religious nucleus. <br><br> In his annotations to his works published in his 1981 monograph authored by artist-critic Rod. Paras-Perez, Manansala said of the final oil work: \"I wanted to show crowdedness and busy movement. That's one of the reasons for the high viewpoint.\" <br><br>  A kaleidoscopic sequence of houses, with the main subject, i.e., the religious procession, blends seamlessly into the composition, evoking vibrancy and solemnity all at the same time. The dominant golden yellows of the composition evoke the regalia of the Virgen del Carmen and underscore its festive ambiance. Manansala's emphasis on vertical orientation and a top-down perspective reinforces his Baroque sensibilities and his ability to convey an image of a dynamic community where Manila's heart and soul reside and where the threads of its socio-cultural fabric are woven. <br><br> The images of the Blessed Mother and the devotees are rendered abstract, almost unrecognizable from a distance, and appear like calligraphic, stick figures, an influence of the art informel movement, which Manansala encountered during his nine-month Parisian scholarship. <br><br> Here, Manansala highlights the often harmonious, at times contradictory interaction between faith and community, prompting the viewer to focus on and reflect on the Filipino context, in which the Catholic faith is deeply woven into our cultural fabric and, therefore, into the native subconscious. Manansala touches on how Catholicism has been entrenched in our collective identity and experience, and how our diverse cultures, traditions, and significant turning points in our nation's history have been intrinsically tied to and shaped by the faith (For example, the awakening of Filipino nationalism in the latter half of the 19th century is rooted in the fight for secularization in the Philippine Church and the subsequent martyrdom of the GomBurZa priests. Quiapo’s social landscape as well is shaped by the people’s ardent devotion to the Nazareno and the Virgen del Carmen). These notions are reinforced by Manansala's calligraphic rendition of the figures, in which the sacred and the profane almost become one and the same, influencing and shaping each other, intertwining and interacting in the same temporal space.","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":2000000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":2000000,"userBid":34,"isPaid":0,"userId":34,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":19759,"reserve_price":0,"hammer_price":2403200,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":66835,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/203/236/lot/109.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":67145,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/203/236/lot/109a.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":108,"next":110,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}