Provenance: Ah Tay Workshop Binondo, Manila Heirs of Lorenza Veneracion

ABOUT THE WORK

During the last quarter of the 19th century the foremost furniture maker in the colony was Ah Tay. His workshop in Binondo turned out elaborate narra furniture of the highest quality and workmanship, with exceptional carving and attention to detail. Probably the best selling item he made was the so-called Ah Tay Four-Poster Bed aka Calabasa (squash) Bed, because of the shape of its bedpost. This was the most popular bed in upper-class homes and can be found literally from the Ilocos to the Visayas. This narra bed, although of matrimonial size, was made for a lady, because its bedposts are not massive. It stands on four turned and tapering bedposts with a top carved in the shape of a squash-shaped dome, hence the calabasa moniker. Each leg has two reels below the mattress support and terminates in bun feet. Pierced and carved bed supports on the four sides join the legs together. These are carved with C-scrolls at each end are connected by parallel grooved moldings ending in volutes that rest above and below a disk carved with a flower with eight petals. The bed supports of the long sides are appliqued with an oblong lozenge with a grooved molding around it and rounded ends with a bead attached to the middle of each. The mattress support is caned in one piece. The tester supports, carved in the shape of thin and attenuated lyres joined end to end, have a grooved circle, pierced and carved with a flower with four large petals and four smaller ones in between. The lower lyre shape is pierced and symmetrically carved with grooved C-scrolls with a stemmed fruit with two leaves within the volutes. The headboard, as is typically found in Ah Tay’s work, is intricately carved on both sides from a single wooden plank. Shaped like a cusped ogee-arched frame pierced and surmounted by a turned and pointed finial, it is carved with a central escutcheon supported and topped by acanthus leaves and flanked by symmetrical foliate scrolls. Large vertical foliate C-scrolls enclosing a honeysuckle are symmetrically carved on either side of the central escutcheon. The tester has yoke-shaped sides connected to a pineapple-like ovoid carved with an oval lozenge with a concave molding and topped by a beaded ring surmounted by a turned and carved finial. The yokes are pierced and carved with a stylized flower with five large petals topped by a spray of three leaves. Symmetrical C-scrolls beneath the large flower are terminated at the center by a bunch of grapes, the symbol off ertility. -Martin I. Tinio, Jr.