Provenance: : Don Pedro Alejandro Paterno (1857 - 1911) and Don?a Luisa Pin?eyro de Lugo y Merino (Sra. de Paterno, d. 1897)

ABOUT THE WORK

by AUGUSTO MARCELINO REYES GONZALEZ III One of the most personal items among Don Pedro Alejandro Paterno’s possessions from the Doña Luisa Piñeyro de Lugo y Merino estate is this small mauve– colored family album from 1870–1900. In all likelihood, it was first assembled by Pedro’s sisters Agueda, Dolores, Jacoba, Paz, and Trinidad and sent to him in Madrid during his early years there (1871–74). Taken by the best photography studios in Manila at that time (Albert Honnis, Francisco van Kamp, Enrique Schuren, E M Barretto, Francisco Pertierra, Manuel Arias Rodriguez), the pictures show Capitan Maximino Molo Agustin Paterno or “Memo” (1824-1900), young, with hair, pre– 1872 exile, his second wife Carmen Devera Ygnacio y Pineda (“Carmina” , d. 1868), his third wife Teodora Devera Ygnacio y Pineda (“Loleng”, d. 1895), his fifteen children (seven sons and eight daughters): Narciso (“Ciso” 1848 – 1900), Agueda (“Guiday”, 1853 – 1915), Dolores (“Doleng”, 1854 – 1881), Jose Timoteo, 1855 - 1926), Pedro, (1857 – 1911), Jacoba (“Cobang”, 1858 - + 1918), Antonio (“Minong”, 1860 – 1895), Maximino (1863 – 1929), Paz (1867 – 1914), Trinidad (“Trining”, 1868 – 1932), Mariano (“Nano” , 1877 – 1934), Concepcion (“Concha” , 1878 – 1943), the fraternal twins Maria del Carmen (“Rosenda”, 1879 – 1879) and Feliciano (“Ciano”, 1879 – 1951), and Adelaida (“Adela” , 1880 – + 1962). The album also includes pictures of the Paternos’ spouses and children, as well as Maximino Paterno’s siblings --- Matea, Martina, and Padre Tomas Molo Agustin Paterno. It is the album of a big family. The photographs bring to life the affluent Paterno–Devera Ygnacio family as they lived in their palatial, block–long residence bounded by Calles San Roque, Carriedo, Quiotan, and Noria in Santa Cruz, Manila, halfway between the Quiapo church and the Santa Cruz church, during the late 1800s. This highly personal album was thought lost to time until it resurfaced with a group of singular objects owned by Don Pedro Paterno from the estate of his wife Doña Luisa Piñeyro y Merino in Spain. It was well– documented in photographs as part of a set of Filipino albums Paterno used to exhibit in his Filipino pavilions during international expositions. The objects remained in the Piñeyro residence when the childless Paterno couple returned to Filipinas in the 1890s; Doña Luisa passed away in Manila in 1897; Don Pedro passed away 14 years later in 1911. The Piñeyro family did not express any interest to claim anything from Don Pedro’s estate. With its reappearance, the circle of provenance has been completed. Echoes of the Cavite Mutiny of 1872: The Men and Documents Behind the History The names of the men who were accused of complicity in the Cavite Mutiny of 1872 are interwoven in the vast documents that belonged to Don Pedro Paterno and his brother-in-law, the lawyer Manuel Regidor y Jurado presented in this curated auction. Among the accused were Pedro Paterno’s own father, Maximo, as well as a cross-section of Manila’s wealthy and educated : Joaquin Pardo de Tavera, the brothers Jose and Pio Basa, as well as various merchants and lawyers and secular priests. Adding further urgency to the situation was the arrest of Manuel Regidor’s own brother Antonio, a government minister who was suspected of subversive leanings. The priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora (the Gomburza of fame) had been heinously executed by garrote just a month earlier. Tragedy and terror reigned in Manilla. It was through the persistence of Manuel Regidor — and fellow lawyer and Cuban senator Rafael Maria de Labra, some of whose books are represented here in the Paterno library collection — that Maximo Paterno, Antonio Regidor, Joaquin Pardo de Tavera were released on various conditions of exile. (Trinidad Hermenegildo or “TH” Pardo de Tavera is found in photographs and his epic treatise on Philippine medicinal plants is included in this auction as well.) The illustration above of the ‘Grupo de Filipinos Ilustres' by Guillermo Tolentino shows Don Pedro Paterno and Jose Ma. Basa, Fr. Jose Burgos, and Antonio Regidor in the august company of Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Marcelo H. del Pilar and Apolinario Mabini.