{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":61666,"auction_id":209,"set_id":242,"lot_number":"88","artist":"Martino Abellana (1914 - 1988)","title":"Basilica of Santo Niño de Cebu","starting_price":240000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1965 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"16\" x 20\" (41 cm x 51 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Private collection, USA","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"This painting by Martino Abellana, the “Dean of Cebuano Painters,” commemorates a landmark event in the history of Catholicism in Cebu, the cradle of Christianity in the Philippines, where the devotion to the Santo Niño originated.<br/><br/>The devotion to the Child Jesus, popularly and devoutly known as Santo Niño in the Philippines, runs deep in the Cebuano psyche. The oldest Catholic image in the country, the wooden statue of the Santo Niño de Cebu was gifted by Ferdinand Magellan to Rajah Humabon and his wife, who, after their conversion to Catholicism, became Carlos in honor of King Charles I of Spain and Juana, after the king’s mother, Joanna of Castille.<br/><br/>The image is currently housed in the Santo Niño Chapel, a marble structure erected in 1975 to serve as the permanent sanctuary of the centuries-old image. The chapel is located within the complex of the Augustinian Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu, the oldest church in the country (not to be confused with the title “oldest church building in the country,” which officially belongs to the San Agustin Church in Intramuros), founded by the Augustinian Fray Andres de Urdaneta on April 28, 1565, the day the image of the Holy Child was rediscovered by Juan Camus, a sailor of the fleet of the conquistador El Adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, who formally claimed the islands in the name of the Spanish crown.<br/><br/>After Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan on April 27, 1521 and the surviving Spaniards left the islands, the image of the Santo Niño was left to the natives’ care, placing it among their pantheon of idols, to which they offered sacrifices, performed rituals, and anointed with fragrant oils. Camus found the image in a large house, one of the few structures spared by the fire said to have been ignited by the native Cebuanos in their village, who had fled to the mountains to escape the ensuing capture of their island by the Spaniards. When Camus fortuitously discovered in a box made of pine the very same image that Magellan presented to Humabon, he was said to have been elated with joy, rushed outside the house, and exclaimed in broken Spanish, “Papa el cuerpo de Dios, Hijo de Santa Maria, Hallado Has!”<br/><br/>The current structure of the Basilica Minore, completed on January 16, 1740, was the former location of the house where Camus found the Santo Niño. The present-day church is actually the fourth church structure built on the site; the first one was said to have been built by Fray Diego de Herrera, first prior of the Santo Niño Church, and burned in 1566.<br/><br/>Abellana painted this serene image of the basilica in 1965, coinciding with the quadricentennial celebrations of the arrival of Catholicism in the Philippines and the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the Santo Niño by Juan Camus. That same year also witnessed the canonical coronation of the image on April 28, 1965, a privilege granted through the Papal Bull Cunabula Religionis issued by then-Pope Paul VI dated February 27, 1964. The solemn coronation of the image coincided with the 400th anniversary of its rediscovery by Camus.<br/><br/>The church of the Santo Niño was also elevated into a Minor Basilica by then-Pope Paul VI. The Pope was represented by Cardinal Ildebrando Antoniutti, Papal Legate to the Philippines, in conferring the precious title to the historic church. Pope Paul VI also declared the basilica as the “mater et caput exstitit omnium ecclesiarum Insularum Philippinarum”—the Mother and Head of all Churches in the Philippines and thus reinforcing and solidifying Cebu’s position as the cradle of Catholicism in the Philippines, a religion firmly intertwined with the lives and culture of the Filipinos.","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":400000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":400000,"userBid":34,"isPaid":0,"userId":34,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":25143,"reserve_price":0,"hammer_price":480640,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":68565,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/209/242/lot/88.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":68843,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/209/242/lot/88a.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":68842,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/209/242/lot/88b.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[450000,500000,550000,600000,650000,700000,750000,800000,900000,1000000,1100000,1200000,1300000,1400000,1500000,1600000,1700000,1800000,1900000,2000000,2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":87,"next":89,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}