Provenance: When Felix Resureccion Hidalgo died in 1913 leaving a fortune of real estate, shares of stocks, and paintings — and without leaving legitimate descendants nor recognized natural heirs — his mother Dona Maria Barbara Padilla y Flores, inherited everything. The next year, she too died leaving the Hidalgo-Padilla fortune to her heirs. The bulk of the paintings then went to the ‘sobrinos’ or nephews of Fe l i x , namely Don Felipe Hidalgo, son of Jose; Don Eduardo Hidalgo Paz and Dona Rosario Paz de Perez, children of his sister Pilar who was married to Maximo Paz.

ABOUT THE WORK

This highly important seascape by Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo — depicting sailboats skimming the waters off the town of Étretat in Normandy — will be seen by the public for the very first time snice it was painted in 1909. This joyous masterpiece is a uniquely well-preserved work that is still to be found in its original frame. It will change hands at auction for the first time in more than a hundred years since it passed in 1914 from Resurreccion Hidalgo’s mother Doña Barbara to his nephews. Dr. Jose P. Rizal aptly described Hidalgo as “all light, color, harmony, feeling, limpidness like the Philippines in her calm moonlit nights and in her serene days with her horizons inviting contemplation...” This glorious painting of his beloved Normandy puts Resurrección Hidalgo in an almost lighthearted mood, reflected in the clear blue skies and the reflections on the limpid waters of the channel. Normandy was a favorite (and easy) retreat from Paris — and the famous cliffs and rock formations of Etretat can be found in several of Resurrección Hidalgo paintings. In this work, a group of sailboats tarries off the coast as passengers transfer from one to another via a black dinghy. The red and orange sails as well as the bright green hull offer a perfect counterpoint to the mysterious coastline. Its craggy shapes amid the moody horizon are distinguishing marks of Resurrección Hidalgo’s seaside pieces. Augusto “Toto” M.R. Gonzales III writes in his renowned blog ‘Remembrance of Things Awry’, “Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo y Padilla was born in 1855 to the rich, propertied Padilla family of Binondo, Manila originally from 1700s Lingayen, Pangasinan. For starters, he was painted at the age of four in 1859 [or age of six in 1859 fi born in 1853; historians have varied dates] with his maternal grandfather Narciso Padilla by the Tondo maestro Antonio Malantic. He continues, "Narciso Padilla was a rich lawyer and merchant with several businesses and many commercial real estate properties in Manila and surrounding “arrabales” or districts. Narciso’s daughter, Barbara “Baritay” Padilla de Resurreccion Hidalgo, Felix’s mother, inherited many valuable properties from him, among them several big warehouses in the Divisoria entrepot in Tondo which lined the Pasig river. The affluent Padilla family had [and still has] a long history distinguished by high professional achievement, wealth, conservatism, and prudence. The Padilla descendants recall that, with characteristic frugality, their forebears had transferred the “bahay na bato” ancestral house in Lingayen, Pangasinan beam by beam and brick by brick to Calle General Solano in posh San Miguel district, Manila in the late 1800s. Frugality notwithstanding, the transfer of whole houses “in toto” was not an unusual practice during the Spanish colonial era.” -Lisa Guerrero Nakpil