Accompanied by a certificate issued by Mrs. Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Since Fernando Amorsolo's depiction of the nude is symbolic of his unyielding homage to the female form, the maestro's painterly affair with the art form lasted until the final decade of his prolific artistic career. Although Amorsolo imparts the techniques he acquired from Western academism in these works, the artist does not veer away from imbuing them with his own ideal of the female form—delicate and rounded, thus evoking expressions of innocence, gracefulness, and youthfulness. These qualities are evoked in this 1960 piece, where the maestro's trademark impasto strokes exude expressiveness. Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo describes this piece as a "rough study of a nude woman." "The woman lies on a bed with her right and resting arm on top of her forehead while her left arm rests over the side of her head," Amorsolo-Lazo writes. "Both her hands are clasped together. The legs are positioned in such a way that her right thigh is over her left thigh, and the right lower leg is over and across the left lower leg. With her eyes closed, it gives the impression that she is comfortable asleep with a pillow under her head. "Rough and colorful brush strokes produce draperies spread all over the bed. At the background is an impression of the interior of the room," Amorsolo-Lazo concludes. In this work, the woman does not succumb to conservative notions regarding nudity, especially that of a female. She revels comfortably in the bare state of her beautiful and admirable physical makeup. The woman exercises her utmost expression of female autonomy in her unclad beauty—an intimate declaration of uncompromising defiance of hegemonic masculinity. She is in a harmonious relationship with her own self. Due to Amorsolo's usual depiction of the female figure delighting in her solitary state, the artist connotes a compelling statement: that as a "true, Filipino gentleman painter," it is an inherent quality in him to celebrate the female form, not fetishize nor conform it to appease and entice the male gaze. This is where the innate power of Amorsolo's nudes lies. (A.M.)