{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":45753,"auction_id":92,"set_id":121,"lot_number":"100","artist":"Fernando Amorsolo (1892 - 1972)","title":"Baguio Trail","starting_price":4000000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1937 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas<br />","size":"20\" x 26\" (51 cm x 66 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Acquired directly from the artist","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"John William Haussermann was one of the most powerful names in Philippine business during the pre-war period. Born on December 14, 1867 in Ohio Township, Clermont County in Ohio, Haussermann was a lawyer by profession, armed with a Bachelor of Laws degree he obtained from the University of Cincinnati in 1889. Haussermann arrived in the Philippines in 1898, serving as 2nd Lieutenant of the 20th Kansas Volunteers of the US Army during the Spanish-American War, which resulted in the turnover of the archipelago from the Spanish crown to the American empire.<br /><br /> Haussermann was Judge Advocate during the PhilippineAmerican War and, eventually, City Attorney of Manila in 1900. He would be promoted to Assistant Attorney General of the Philippines in 1902. Haussermann resigned from his government post and returned to private law practice, becoming the head of Coudert Brothers from 1903 to 1906, which became Haussermann & Cohn and later, Haussermann, Cohn, & Fisher.<br /><br /> But Haussermann struck gold when he became president of the Benguet Consolidated Mining Co. in 1913, the country's oldest and most prolific gold mining corporation. Hausermann had also previously received stocks from the company’s American founders since he drafted the company's articles of incorporation in 1903, when he was still practicing law.<br /><br /> A March 8, 1948 article from TIME Magazine titled \"Mining: Return of the King\" recounts how Haussermann crossed paths with mining. The article writes: \"It was a disaster that had made Haussermann a miner. In 1911, a typhoon swept northern Luzon, flooded the tiny Benguet Co.'s only mill, bankrupted the owners, and left the Bank of the Philippine Islands with a worthless batch of loans. To retrieve its stake, the bank picked Haussermann, Benguet's lawyer, who had come to the islands in 1898 as a second lieutenant and had stayed to become an assistant attorney general in the new Philippine government.”<br /><br /> TIME continues: \"Judge\" Haussermann floated 200,000 shares of new stock, borrowed $75,000 from the bank, built a new mill, and started mining ore. In two years, he paid off the bank's loan to Benguet. Gradually, he increased his own stock holdings out of earnings until he owned a controlling interest of about 30%. (His original investment was eventually worth $460,000.)\"<br /><br /> In 1915, Haussermann successfully revived Benguet Consolidated from the ashes. In 1917, the company's first mining community— located at Antamok—finished construction. From its revival in the mid 1910s until 1932, the Benguet Consolidated's gross output reached PHP 36.7 million according to Haussermann’s report published in the 1933 yearbook of the Port of Manila and other Philippine ports.<br /><br /> He would serve as president until 1915, resigning from the top post \"because of a protracted absence from the Islands,\" writes in Men of the Philippines: A biographical record of men of substantial achievement in the Philippine Islands (1931). The record also notes that Haussermann \"took the office of vice president... and is also one of the active managing directors of the corporation.\" By 1939, however, Haussermann had returned to the presidency and had become general manager of Benguet Consolidated according to Miguel Cornejo’s all-important Commonwealth Directory of the Philippines (1939). There is also a record in the August 1934 issue of the Philippine Magazine that Haussermann signed contracts “as President and General Manager of the Benguet Consolidated Mining Company to take over the management of three new mines— those of the Abra Mining Company, the Southern Cross, and the Consolidated Mines.”<br /><br /> Haussermann also helmed the acquisition of the Balatoc Mining Company in the late 1920s, effectively merging what would become the two most powerful mining companies in the Philippines by the 1930s and ushering the city of Baguio towards a golden age of prosperity. Haussermann was elected president of the Balatoc Mining Co. in 1927 and would steer the company towards reaching a gross output of PHP 11.8 million in only five years, as Haussermann reported. He also had a $300,000 controlling interest in the company. In 1932, the Benguet and Balatoc companies generated “four-fifths of the gold mined in the Philippines,” as Haussermann wrote in 1933, “or more than P 8,000,000 of the total output amounting to P 10,000,000.”<br /><br /> By 1940, TIME Magazine notes, Haussermann's mines \"employed 10,000 Filipinos, produced 1,200,000 tons of ore— about one-third of the islands' gold output—and earned their stockholders $4,000,000 a year.\" By 1941, the same magazine wrote that the Benguet Consolidated Mining Company had become a 100-million-dollar empire.<br /><br /> Haussermann was now the Philippines’ (and America’s) undisputed \"King of Gold.\" Under his economic genius, the Philippines became the number one gold producer in all American states and territories, a status it would enjoy until World War II.<br /><br /> Due to his influential status, Haussermann acquired and became president of the North Luzon Power Company. He was also director of Philippine-American Drug Co., Manila Hume Pipe & Tile Co., Peoples Bank & Trust Co., and the People's Mortgage & Investment Co. Haussermann also held the positions of vice-president of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines and of the national council of the US Chamber of Commerce.<br /><br /> Haussermann left the Philippines in 1940 and returned to Ohio, where he spent the \"war years.\" He returned to Manila in May 1948 and immediately oversaw the reconstruction of the war-shattered mining company and its villages, which had started a year earlier.<br /><br /> Recognized as the “master of rural landscape,” National Artist Fernando Amorsolo continuously graced the Philippine art scene with his sunlit landscapes, sometimes populated with archetypal Filipino folk activities. Moreover, his artistic virtuosity is not just a skill but a force that shapes the emotional impact of his paintings, demonstrating the power of his artistry<br /><br /> The Cordilleras have always been one of the maestro’s favored subjects, using it as a background, a breath of fresh air, in contrast to the hardworking and diligent country folks. Other times, Amorsolo just wanted to flaunt the magnificent mountain view. Nonetheless, his skilled hands and well-thought-out plotting of strokes and utilization of Memories of the Baguio Gold Rush A Golden Memento for the Gold King by JESSICA MAGNO Road to Market for the Northern Tribe colors create masterpiece after masterpiece that profoundly resonates with the viewer’s emotions, sparking a sense of warmth and nostalgia.<br /><br /> Baguio Scene was painted at the height of Amorsolo’s career in 1937. Here, he showcased a group of Ifugaos walking on the mountainside. Carrying big containers of their belongings, a little kid in tow, and a man holding the leash of four domesticated dogs, these people resemble a family migrating to a different part of the mountain. Bearing the ever-present “Amorsolo light,” this oil painting is a blend of his fine brush strokes and mastery of colors, resulting in a warm yet tranquil imagery, a testament to Amorsolo’s exceptional artistry.","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":8000000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":8000000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":9612800,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":44480,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/92/121/lot/100.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":44801,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/92/121/lot/100e.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":44800,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/92/121/lot/100c.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":44799,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/92/121/lot/100b.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":44481,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/92/121/lot/100d.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":99,"next":101,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}