{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":60836,"auction_id":203,"set_id":236,"lot_number":"125","artist":"Fernando Amorsolo (1892 - 1972)","title":"Planting Rice","starting_price":5000000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1955 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"24\" x 32\" (61 cm x 81 cm)","property":" PROPERTY FROM THE HON. GEORGE A. MALCOLM COLLECTION","coa":null,"provenance":"Acquired directly from the artist","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"By 1955, Fernando Amorsolo was firmly established as the leading visual chronicler of Philippine life. Retired from the UP School of Fine Arts, Amorsolo endeavored to meet the unwavering/persistent demand for his work. <br/><br/> “The closing two decades of his life were lived within the confines of his studio. Every day he painted from sunrise to sunset,” art critic Alfredo Roces explained in the foundational monograph Amorsolo 1892 – 1972. <br/><br/> Portraits occupied most of Amorsolo’s time, but it was in genre painting and nature scenes that the master found freedom [Roces 134]. However, with the modernization of agriculture, the growing industrialization of provinces, and a sense of disenfranchisement that spurred militant agrarian movements, the Philippine countryside was changing. Amorsolo nonetheless remained faithful to the pastoral idealism for which he was known. <br/><br/> In the book Amorsolo: Seven-Museum Exhibition, curator Purissima Benitez - Johannot wrote that despite the systemic/socioeconomic challenges faced by farm workers, “Amorsolo depicted them romantically; his faith in golden harvests remained unwavering.” <br/><br/> Amid turbulence in both art and society in the 1950s, perhaps the appeal of idyllic pastures was even greater than before. Undoubtedly, the peaceful vitality of Amorsolo’s arcadian scenes are a sharp contrast to the gloomy devastation captured in his dim paintings of war and ruins in the decade prior. The beauty of Philippine provincial life is timeless, but in the newly independent nation, Amorsolo’s celebration of farmworkers and their labor bore a new significance.  <br/><br/> This piece features the soft brushwork, muted colors, and milder lighting that characterize Amorsolo’s later paintings. Against the serene greens and blues of the lush landscape, the maiden in the foreground glows in Amorsolo’s signature sunlight, which illuminates her yellow headscarf. Immediately the eye is drawn to her by the warmth of her clothing, the visibility of her face, and her upright figure, which bisects the horizontal lines of the fields, the sky, and the workers in the mid-distance. <br/><br/> The baskets of rice seedlings in the foreground are sunlit as well, while Amorsolo’s mastery of light and shadow is apparent in the body of the male farmer kneeling in the center. The triangle formed by the man, the maiden, and the basket at her feet is the focal point of the painting—a picture of harmony, among men and women and between humans and nature. <br/><br/> In the same year this work was painted, Congress passed Republic Act 1386, which declared owner George A. Malcolm (founder of the UP College of Law and a Supreme Court justice) an adopted son of the Philippines and granted him citizenship in recognition of his “priceless services” to Filipinos. Thus, this painting has served as both a tribute to a simpler age and a commemoration of the collector’s contributions to nation-building. (Nicole Lhuillier)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":9000000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":9000000,"userBid":34,"isPaid":0,"userId":34,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":19869,"reserve_price":0,"hammer_price":10814400,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":66851,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/203/236/lot/125.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":67180,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/203/236/lot/125d.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":67179,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/203/236/lot/125c.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":67178,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/203/236/lot/125b.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":67177,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/203/236/lot/125a.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":124,"next":126,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}