Provenance: Laguna or Batangas Private Collection, USA

ABOUT THE WORK

Classical Filipino furniture, although finely crafted from beautiful hardwoods, usually fell prey to improper storage, natural disasters (typhoons, floods, earthquakes), shifts in domestic taste, political upheavals, World War II, with the most dangerous being the Filipinos’ penchant for current fashions. That is why the remarkable survival of this early comoda (commode) from Batangas province is noteworthy, having been brought to the Southern United States by a prosperous trader in the early 1800s and quietly kept there for two hundred years. It now returns to the land of its origins. This rare comoda in neoclassical style is crafted from red–purplish “tindalo” and figured “kamagong” woods and is intricately decorated with inlay in lanite and kamagong wood. The fine marquetry is similar in style and workmanship to the crests of Manila and Ilocos aparadors, the salient feature that caught the eye of a distinguished collector. Although of Philippine make, there is an unmistakable, underlying Indian influence to the piece. The comoda has a “binandeja” (framed) top of tindalo wood. Underneath the top is a small band of stylized acanthus leaves which runs through the three sides of the piece. There are two drawers with one long drawer underneath; all drawer fronts are of kamagong. Between the two drawers is a shield–shaped panel enclosing a cartouche ornately carved with “boteh”/leaf shapes and floral and foliar motifs featuring the initials of “V d E,” most likely the first owner of the piece. The three drawers are decorated with panels having concave sides formed by a succession of lanite diamonds and ropework designs enclosing marquetry “boteh”/leaf and circular shapes painstakingly incised with foliar designs; the keyholes are underscored by marquetry feather shapes also etched with foliar designs. All drawer slots as well as the sides are bordered with gadrooning/beadwork; the drawer pulls are distinctive pyramid–type finials also found atop carved stone gateways, as banister finials on “escaleras principales” (principal stairways), and “banggera”/“vanguera” (dishrack) finials in early Filipino “bahay–na–bato.” Flanking the two drawers are two rounded, elaborately carved finials with leaves and reeding --- suggesting acanthus leaves --- pointed downwards, a detail seen in unusual Batangas comodas. The sides are adorned with square panels formed by lanite marquetry with engraved ribbons enclosing “boteh”/leaf shapes incised with foliar designs at the four corners centered by a small marquetry circle likewise etched with foliar motifs. There is an elaborate carved apron of intertwined grape leaves in relief. There are four neoclassical reeded and detailed baluster legs of kamagong with inverted cup feet.. This repatriated comoda shares similar features and details with a famous and unusual Batangas comoda in the Leandro Valencia Locsin–Cecilia Araneta Yulo collection. In much the same way as the early nineteenth century Manila and Ilocos aparadors were designed after American Federal furniture --- as the United States, ironically not Madre Espana, was the major trading partner of Las Islas Filipinas during the 1800s --- the latter American furniture was modeled after the streamlined neoclassical work of England’s “Big Three,” its great cabinetmakers Thomas Chippendale (1718–1779), George Hepplewhite (1727– 1786), and Thomas Sheraton (1751–1806) during the late eighteenth century. The English “Big Three” in turn were influenced by the inevitable artistic and cultural transfers from across the channel by the French Neoclassical style radiating from the Palace of Versailles, the epicenter of all architectural, interior design and decoration, dress and lifestyle fashions in Europe for much of the 1600s to the 1700s. Aristocrats and tastemakers Anne–Claude de Caylus (Comte de Caylus) and Abel–Francois Poisson de Vandieres (Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour), architects Ange–Jacques Gabriel and Claude–Nicolas Ledoux, painters Jacques–Louis David and Jean–Auguste–Dominique Ingres, and cabinetmakers David Roentgen, Jean–Henri Riesener, Martin Carlin, Adam Weisweiler were the main proponents of the early French Neoclassical style.