Provenance: Private Collection, USA

ABOUT THE WORK

Dated 1914, these are perhaps the earliest-known Amorsolo paintings to be discovered and brought to auction. Certainly, they are seminal works of the master’s career as one of the country’s most famous portraitists, successor to his fabled uncle Fabian de la Rosa. The older painter had become one of the most sought-after portrait-painters for Manila’s rich and famous and soon, Amorsolo would eclipse him. Writing on Amorsolo and this pair of portraits, iconic scholar Ramon N. Villegas on January 3, 2013, said, “Amorsolo was born in 1892, so in 1914, he was only 22 years old. His patron — Don Enrique Zobel de Ayala — gave him a grant to travel to Europe in 1919.” In 1914, Amorsolo had some fame, having won a silver medal at the important competition the ‘Exposicion Internacional de Bellas Artes” organized by the Asociacion Internacional de Artistas in 1908 for the work ‘Leyendo Periodico.’ He had also just finished his studies in Painting at the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts and had been hired by the school as a drawing instructor. Villegas continues, “I don't think the gentleman in the first portrait is a Spaniard, but he is mestizo, or a Filipino with Spanish blood. The woman looks like she also has Chinese blood together with some Spanish. Both portraits seem to have been painted from photographs, particularly because of the rather forthright gaze of the young woman “The fellow's portrait has an "antique" feel; an almost-1890s’ look to it, based on the man's European suit and his handlebar moustache. The lady's portrait, on the other hand, has a 1914 look. She is wearing a Filipina dress of that period. So you must consider the possibility that they are father and daughter, with the gentleman’s portrait based on an older photograph. “The earliest extant photograph of Manila scenes are dated 1845 (from the Hispanic Society of America, in New York). There were commercial photography studios from the 1860s and the wealthy commonly had photographic portraits taken by the 1880s, and copied in oil by painters. By the 1890s, photographic portraits were touched up with colors, which the middle class could afford. But the wealthy always had their photos copied in oil.” All in all, the portraits capture a bygone elegant era of Manila’s refined past: Father is sternly formal in his white collar and dark jacket; his daughter wears a stiffened panel (fichu) with a faintly floral pattern in leaf green. The glint of a gold peineta (comb) in the young womans’ hair and the cross on a necklace around her throat reflect a comfortably wealthy social status.