{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":26491,"auction_id":31,"set_id":52,"lot_number":"61","artist":"Norman Dreo (b. 1970)","title":"Journey to Louvre I and II (Diptych)","starting_price":800000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 2020 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"72” x 96” (183 cm x 244 cm)","property":null,"coa":"Accompanied by a certificate issued by the artist  confirming the authenticity of this lot","provenance":null,"exhibited":"Art Fair Philippines 2020, J Studio Booth, The Link, Ayala  Center, Makati, February 21-23, 2020","literature":null,"write_up":"Norman Dreo is on a mission. It began with his first mural-sized work, Studio Arts, which took the viewer from caveman caves to Luna’s Parisian Life and was followed by the monumental My Little Museum, now enshrined in the Solaire Museum. <br /><br /> In this latest part of his Art by the Masters Series, Dreo takes us on a expedition to the Louvre, the greatest museum on the planet. This French treasurehouse has holdings of 35,000 paintings and 10 times that number in objects and archaeological finds from the world over and from every major civilization. <br /><br /> It is the majesty of Journey to Louvre I and II that makes this memento so powerful. On the one hand, it captures the museum’s most massive artworks, including the Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of the Empress Josephine by Jacques-Louis David. Also featured are Paolo Veronese’s The Wedding Feast at Cana, Andrea Mantegna’s Paranassus, and Ingres’ Odalisque. <br /><br /> There is also a broad swathe of Leonardo da Vincis, a pictorial representation of the Louvre’s horn of plenty of these masterpieces and a reminder that Leonardo was, in fact, the subject of the museum’s last blockbuster exhibition pre-pandemic in October 2019. A Salvator Mundi, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, and Saint John the Baptist flank the unforgettable Mona Lisa, no doubt the most famous painting of all time. <br /><br /> The Louvre is also the world’s most-visited, holding the world record of 10.2 Million visitors in 2018. Even when its administration tried to hold down the crowds, it still topped almost 10 Million last year. It opened in 1793 but began in earnest under Napoleon in 1801. When you consider that it’s been around for more than two centuries, the Louvre is not just a repository of the greatest Western art but looms large as part of that history.<br /><br />  Incredible lengths have been taken to protect its greatest treasures. The Mona Lisa, for example, was transported on an ambulance to safety in the Loire Valley, its curator having almost suffocated in the sealed vehicle.  <br /><br />Dreo himself turns to technology to preserve the Louvre’s fabled collection: Three restorers, dressed prophetically in PPEs hover carefully and respectfully over the works. A scaffolding is a clever device that organizes the sea of wonders as well as brings the works to the scale of the curators as well as the painting’s viewers. Flasks, bottles and jars, as well as paintbrushes transmute the artists’ tools to the scientists’ expertise. <br /><br /> The present pandemic has forced the Louvre’s closure for the longest time in its 220-year old history, overshadowing the fears of its destruction in World War II. COVID 19 has made museums and museum-lovers all over the world take a long, hard look at the fates of these beloved institutions that can no longer be visited as they used to. As the treasure-houses of a bygone era, what happens when these treasures can no longer be viewed?<br /><br />  Works such as Journey to Louvre I and II become even more important as document not only of these artistic wonders but also of the experience of museum-going to behold our past. <br /><br /> Finally and most importantly, Dreo holds out the hope to all of us that the works will continue to live on no matter what the obstacles. (Lisa Guerrero Nakpil)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":3000000,"bp":0.168,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":3000000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":3504000,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":23907,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/31/52/lot/61.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"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":60,"next":62,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}