(With this series, Lifestyle seeks to shed light on the history, meaning and legacy of the country’s many cultural treasures)...
The “boceto,” or purported study of Juan Luna’s immortal “Spoliarium” that Salcedo Auctions has just bid out, may have divided collectors and experts, but it has also livened up the art scene.
Juan Luna’s “Spoliarium” is probably the most famous painting in the Philippines. Completed in Rome in 1884, it won a First Class medal in the Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts, the same exhibition that awarded Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo’s “Jovenes cristianas expuestas al populacho” (Christian maidens exposed to the mob) with a Second Class medal.
The National Gallery Singapore (NGS) is exhibiting not only Juan Luna’s celebrated “The Death of Cleopatra” mural for the first...
I have been visiting the National Museum of Fine Arts twice a year for the past half-decade, and these visits...
