Provenance: Don Telesforo Chuidian, Telesforo Antonio Chuidian y Chuaquico, Telesforo Eduardo Chuidian y Urbano Olazo, Heirs of Telesforo Eduardo Chuidian y Urbano Olazo

ABOUT THE WORK

This imposing, stately, and unusual aparador from the 1890s features handsome, split–timber doors (also termed as “bookmatched”) framed with moldings and incised decorations in the four corners (characteristic of Renaissance Revival style) separated by a fluted pilaster which serves to divide the cabinet into two portions. The doors are flanked by similar fluted pilasters. The sides of the cabinet ar e of framed narra panels. On top of the doors is an entablature with moldings of two sections divided by three cartouches and centered by two big flowers. The entablature is surmounted by two crests of inward–curving C–scrolls with small foliar carvings separated by three reeded finials (colloquially termed as “kalabasa” or squash). Underneath the two doors are two drawers delineated by moldings on top and below, again separated by three truncated fluted pilasters. The whole ensemble is supported by four traditional bun feet. This splendid tall aparador from the historical Telesforo Antonio Chuidian y Chuaquico estate bears all the four trademarks of genuine Ah Tay furniture: the discriminating selection of mature golden narra wood (stained dark), the seamless Chinese–style joinery, the definite, bold yet faultless proportions, and the extremely fine, intricate, and almost kinetic carving. This aparador was the personal wardrobe cabinet of Telesforo Antonio Chuidian y Chuaquico, one of Manila’s richest men in the 1890s (if not the richest), and was in the cuarto principal/master bedroom of his last residence on Calle General Solano, San Miguel, Manila; it was a large house he had purchased from Sr Buenaventura, who had built it. The late great, “Manila’s romancer of wood” Osmundo Esguerra aka “Omeng” liked to casually describe this kindof furniture as “Malacanang furniture,” not because it came directly from the Malacanang Palace but because it was the distinct type of V ictorian–style furniture one saw inside the palatial and elegant houses in the area--- General Solano Street, J P Laurel street (formerly Aviles street), San Rafael street, Arlegui street, R Hidalgo street (Calle San Sebastian), and even the streets perpendicular to R Hidalgo. The story of the first–generation migrant Chuy Dian from Northern China who eventually became the superrich and powerful Telesforo Antonio Chuidian y Chuaquico is a saga worth knowing. Chuy Dian was a first-generation migrant from Northern China. Arriving in Manila to work hard and do good business, he conveniently converted to Roman Catholicism and took the Christian name of “Telesforo Antonio Chuidian y Chuaquico.” He painstaking built a business trading in basic goods from Manila to the surrounding provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga, Laguna, Cavite, Batangas. His business grew to trade in anything and everything of value from the northernmost to the southernmost points of Filipinas. In due time, the very industrious Telesforo Chuidian became very rich. Superrich, in fact. To further his economic, social, and perhaps political advancement, he sought to marry a Spanish woman, preferably a Spanish woman of stature. In an act of love but also of upward social mobility and mejorar la raza improvement of the race, the already affluent Telesforo Antonio Chuidian y Chuaquico married a noble Spanish/Basque wife, Juana Urbano y Olazo known as “Dona Ita.” It was something unthinkable at the time for a Sangley man to marry a Spanish woman had he not possessed the immense resources. - Augusto M. R. Gonzalez III