National Museum secures Jose Rizal's 'Josephine Sleeping' sculpture for P31 million
Josephine Sleeping, one of Jose Rizal's last sculptural works for his last love, Josephine Bracken, was bought by the National Museum of the Philippines as "a Christmas gift to the Filipino nation."
This came after a new law gave the museum seven days to invoke its right of first refusal and match the winning bid of P31.2 million at the recent Leon Gallery's "Kingly Treasures Auction" last Nov. 30. The amount breaks the world record for the most expensive work of art by the national hero.
"In a feel-good moment in this otherwise politically charged season, the National Museum of the Philippines stepped up to buy Jose Rizal’s 'Mona Lisa' sculpture and make it a Christmas gift to the Filipino nation," public historian, curator, and writer Lisa Guerrero Nakpil said in a Facebook post.
Nakpil added that the sculpture made its way "home" for the hero’s 128th death anniversary this Dec. 30, noting that the winning anonymous bidder "was very pleased that it would be going to a place where it could be shared with everyone."
She noted that Josephine Sleeping is one of the few historical artworks to survive WWII's destruction of Manila. It's believed to have been protected by being buried in a steel drum in the garden of Rizal's descendant.
During the auction, ten bidders joined with an opening price of P7 million. It passed the 10-million mark, going beyond P20 million until it reached the P26 million mark.
A three-cornered battle was ended when one telephone bidder hit the sculpture with a whooping P31 million with the buyer's premium.
However, the National Museum gave formal notice that it would consider exercising its “right of first refusal” for the Rizal sculpture alongside three other historical photographs of the 19th-century artist Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo.
Jaime Ponce de Leon, Leon Gallery founder and art director, said that the sculpture was offered for auction by the descendants of Narcisa Rizal, one of the sisters of Rizal.
Josephine Sleeping, which is 6 cm in height, 24 cm in length, and 7 cm in width, portrays Josephine Bracken lying outstretched on a classical Roman-style couch with a headrest, covered in a thin blanket that outlines her waist and thighs.
The sculpture also shows Bracken's hand modestly covering her chest while she "innocently half-smiled" in her sleep, her tresses parted over her forehead.
Historian Leon Ma. Guerrero noted in his book, The First Filipino: A Biography of Jose Rizal, that Bracken was “the one woman with whom [Rizal] shared that most jealously prized of all his possessions, his name, and also his heart’s intimacies.”
Josephine Sleeping, which has Rizal's name inscribed at the bottom of the sculpture, surpassed the previous record of Rizal’s bas-relief work in the same timeline dubbed The Filipino, which fetched P17.5 million at Leon Gallery in June 2018.
