With an inscription that reads in part: Dedicated to Don Rafael Palma, “Con Admiracion y Amistad (With Admiration and Friendship)” and Signed “El Autor (The Author)”, P.I. — 1930

Provenance: A gift from the artist, Fabian de la Rosa to Rafael Palma; from thence by descent to his daughter Alicia Palma and has remained in the family for almost a century

Literature: A smaller and probably later work—described as Untitled, oil on canvas, measuring 22” x 30” (75.6 cm x 56.8 cm), and belonging to the Roberto Lopez Collection—is featured in Benesa, Leonidas et al. Art Philippines. Manila, Philippines: Crucible Workshop, 1992, p. 85

ABOUT THE WORK

Fabian de la Rosa came from a family of artists. His uncle, Simon Flores y de la Rosa, was one of Manila’s leading portraitists; his aunt, also a painter, was one of his teachers. His nephew, whom he mentored, was Fernando Amorsolo, widely recognized as the inventor of the Philippine sunlit landscape. He was one of the fabled characters that inhabited the streets and salons of turn-of-the-century Manila, in that turbulent period between the sunset of the Spanish empire and the dawn of the American century. De la Rosa was accepted as a student at the Manila Academia in Intramuros. Orphaned, however, at age 16, he would have to drop out in his third year. De la Rosa soon took his talent for painting to the streets, selling small works to tourists for fifty centavos each. He would also eke out a living at the famous Sala de Armas fencing school established by the Luna brothers. He was apparently talented enough to be taken on as an instructor; his students included a young Mabini, still able-bodied. Between 1893 and 1897, de la Rosa would begin to make a name for himself, alongside his contemporaries Jorge Pineda and Ramon Peralta. He would become successful enough to be impatient and, in 1898, began lobbying for the re-installation of the annual Madrid art scholarships. His chances would be swept away in the maelstrom of the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine-American War that followed soon after. Nevertheless, he would continue to build a clientele of the wealthy who would come to his studio to be immortalized in portraits. Significantly, he would join Resurreccion Hidalgo and Juan Luna at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, an important milestone in America’s cultural conquest. His work Planting Rice—which depicted the peace and serenity of the United States’ new colony, the Philippines—took home the gold, putting him shoulder to shoulder with the country’s most famous painters. De la Rosa was a quick study of personalities, thanks to painting many portraits—some of them in his early days, on the fly in the streets of Manila—such as Dos Hermanas, where he captures the intelligent and lively personalities of the Palma sisters. He would travel in the same concentric circles as Rafael Palma, having overlapping friends including the brothers Juan and Antonio Luna and other members of the First Philippine Republic. He would be familiar, as was eventually Palma, with the American power structure that included foreign diplomats, businessmen, and other personalities. At the time of this painting, de la Rosa had already been named the head of the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts in 1927. In Dos Hermanas, Virginia—on the left, born in 1903, and therefore in her late 20s at the time—is a more serious figure compared to the livelier Alicia—on the right and clearly much younger. The Palma sisters are on their way to mass, as suggested by the long black veils that cover their heads. Alicia wears a smile and carries a delicate bead rosary in one hand. A painted Japanese paper umbrella dramatically shades their beauty. The Palmas were characterized by historian Teodoro Agoncillo as simple folks without the airs of aristocracy nor the trappings of the nouveau riche. They were, however, secure in their intelligence and love of country; and this was expressed in their feminine but graceful baro’t saya ungilded by the usual jewelry. They are the epitome of the modern Filipina. From a distance, as if departing the past, are silhouettes of old Manila and Intramuros. Virginia and Alicia would have been among the country’s first suffragettes or advocates of women’s right to vote, Alicia Palma in her teens. The younger daughter of Rafael Palma would marry architect Nicanor Bautista and would become a writer and educator like her father. They are the epitome of the modern Filipina. From a distance, as if departing the past, are silhouettes of old Manila and Intramuros. Virginia and Alicia would have been among the country’s first suffragettes or advocates of women’s right to vote, of which their father was a devoted leader. Virginia would go on to marry Arsenio L. Bonifacio, a politician who would become a cabinet secretary as well as governor of Laguna. Alicia would also marry but become a writer, like her father, in her own right. De la Rosa opted to paint the sisters in a modernist yet elegant style in contrast to his more classical work. -Lisa Guerrero Nakpil