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

ABOUT THE WORK

The Filipino woman would be one of Fernando Amorsolo’s most enduring and best-loved themes. He would portray her as a pagan princess amid gold and celadon but also as an energetic farmer’s daughter, busy harvesting and winnowing rice or gathering mangoes and cooking the noon-day meal. She could rule kingdoms or the family hearth. One of his favorite scenes was the Filipina beauty, drenched in the village stream, washing or bathing. The sparkling waters would allow Amorsolo to demonstrate his preternatural skill in capturing the play of light he had learned from the Spanish master Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923). It would also allow him to paint dexterously her glistening flesh and the reflection of a pretty floral cloth mirrored in the dappled stream. White foam outlines the edges of the rivulet and the stones on it. In Bather, a maiden smiles to herself as she towels her hair and gazes at her reflection in the clear waters. She holds her arms up in a classical pose, a nod to the graceful Greek and Roman goddesses who have gone before her in artistic inspiration. The stillness of a forest grove, the sun playing on a canopy of leaves, envelopes her. Fernando Amorsolo would be named the country’s very first National Artist for the Visual Arts in 1972, in recognition of his standing as a titan of Philippine art and beloved poet of the Filipino soul. — Lisa Guerrero Nakpil