Martino Abellana (1914 - 1986)

Lot Location: Cebu

LOT ESSAY

The Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris has long captivated generations of artists fascinated by its romantic interplay of architecture, nature, and light. Among its most celebrated interpreters are John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), whose Luxembourg Gardens at Twilight (1879) and In the Luxembourg Gardens explored the park's shifting light and elegant atmosphere, and Albert Edelfelt (1854–1905), whose monumental Luxembourg Gardens, Paris (1887) immortalized the garden as a gathering place of Parisian life. Martino Abellana's interpretation joins this distinguished tradition, yet is unmistakably his own, privileging atmosphere, light, and the brilliance of nature.

Painted during Abellana's only and final visit to Europe in 1985, this atmospheric view of the iconic 17th-century Medici Fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg belongs to the artist's celebrated late landscapes, a group of works widely regarded as the culmination of his career.

His European paintings may be among the rarest and most evocative works of his career. They document a deeply personal encounter between a Filipino master and the artistic landscapes that had long shaped the Western canon.

Raymund Fernandez recognized the exceptional character of these late European landscapes in his book Kamingaw: An Impressionist Portrait of the Bisaya Painter Martino A. Abellana:

"It was there where he made some of his most interesting works in the landscape genre using watercolor and oil. There is an unprecedented softness of light about these works, which differentiate them from his earlier works. One sees in these paintings the quickness of his brushwork. It seems almost as if his whole lifetime of learning techniques was only to prepare for this one last explosion of works."

Lot Location: Cebu