Leon Gallery wishes to thank Mrs. Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo for confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance: Fernando Zobel de Ayala y Montojo Private Collection, Madrid

ABOUT THE WORK

Fernando Amorsolo's journey began with the opportunity to study in Europe through the auspices of his patron, Don Enrique Zóbel de Ayala in Madrid in 1919, at a time of great political upheaval on the continent. The trends towards the great “isms” that would transform the landscape of Western modern art sought to clash and debate among themselves were encountered by the young Amorsolo. He also encountered the works of John Singer Sargent, Ignacio Zulaoga and Joaquin Sorolla which captivated him in their capturing of light and its great devotion to its effects, known as Luminism. Luminism is the appropriate term in describing the idyllic scenes that Amorsolo captures in his most prolific works of rural Edens unto the canvas. American art historian John I. H. Baur (1909-1987) who first described Luminism, as that of works with a natural representation of light and its atmosphere, that were first seen on American landscape painting between 1850 to 1875 that later engrained the ideas and colors of the Impressionists into their work. The Luminists like Sorolla, Zuloaga and their contemporaries including Amorsolo emulated through the spontaneity of the moment, which unfolded before their very eyes and imbued it with the emotional charge that they experienced at that time. In an interview published in the broadsheet Manila Nueva dated the 6th of March 1920, he commented on the trend of the Luminists and his admiration of their works: “Of the moderns, I like first Zuloaga then Sorolla, who in each in his own style, are two figures of the first magnitude.” This was the main artistic style Amorsolo brought back into the colonial setting of the Philippines, by rendering light into his grandiose idyllic scenes of rural pastures as represented by this work of the Dalagang Bukid painted in 1927. For Amorsolo, the Dalagang Bukid was his muse of ideal Filipina beauty foregoing the Maria Clara-typed wallflower who presents herself as a smiling and cheerful lady, in spite of the labor beckoned in the agricultural plain. She is depicted sporting in the national costume of the baro’t saya with her hair firmly held by flowing bandana to shield her, from the brightness of the afternoon sun. Amorsolo was careful in the details of the eyes, face and other features of the young maiden’s own garments especially the baro’t saya. The saya of the young maiden is painted quite delicately though it gives an effect of translucence that her arms and neckline can be seen through the slim layer of textile, complimenting her radiant beauty that Amorsolo admired dearly. What is quite rare in this work is the background at which Amorsolo painted this work is very fluid that are soft pastel colors of green, yellows and pinks. In comparison to a much later iteration done in 1938 that is presently held in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Collection, the back - ground is much refined with the soft and delicate brushstrokes that are carefully contrasted with the central figure. One could suspect that this work may be considered as the earliest, if not the first iteration of this subject matter by Amorsolo. As the decades would follow until his passing in 1972, Amorsolo reinterpreted, reimagined and retouched this image of his ideal beauty that he has helped cultivate to an entire generation. References: Aquino Sarmiento, Carmen, "A Sense of Place", in Lupang Hinirang: Alay ni Amorsolo, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Philippines, 1989, pp. 9-13. Roces, Alfredo, "Amorsolo 1892-1972", Flipinas Foundation, Inc., 1972.