Provenance: Provenance: Romeo Jorge Private Collection, Makati City

ABOUT THE WORK

A“mesa altar” or altar table for the sacred Christian - Roman Catholic images of the household was one of the earliest pieces of Filipino furniture. The earliest prototypes from the late 1500s to the early 1600s were copies of Ming dynasty tables. Sometime in the 1600s, based on church inventories, these morphed to the massive altar tables with legs decorated with Oriental grotesque masques (adapted from the Asian goddess Kala) and ball-and-claw feet all on stretchers, colloquially termed dinemonyo (“with a demon”). Still in the Sinitic tradition, a high point of the mesa altar was reached in the mid-1700s with the “comoda de Batangas” or Batangas Uno altar table (according to Ramon N. Villegas and Osmundo Esguerra), a hardwood extravaganza of red tindalo wood and black kamagong wood with three to five drawers, delicate pierce-work flanges and apron, occasional inlays of kamagong wood and carabao bone, all supported on cabriole legs over stretchers. The ornate Batangas altar table was succeeded by a plain version with cabriole legs on stretchers, some with serpentine drawer fronts, the Batangas Dos. The interesting thing is that both the Batangas Uno and the Batangas Dos types of altar tables were made well into the first half of the 1800s. The Sinitic tradition ended there as copies of Western European - Victorian tables became all the fashion during the second half of the 1800s. In Baliuag, Bulacan, located in the plains of Central Luzon, a furniture-making tradition flourished from around 1800 until after World War II. The furniture designs were European neoclassical, the woods used were golden narra and kamagong, the decorations were carabao bone and kamagong inlays (some very rare pieces were decorated with mother-of-pearl inlay). Baliuag, Bulacan, produced this type of neoclassical, bone-and kamagong–inlaid mesa altar with a bowfront, three drawers, and four square, tapering Hepplewhite legs during the first half of the 1800s. The general look is reminiscent of an English / American Sheraton-type sideboard and that was why local antique dealers and agents termed such pieces as “Sheraton.” This beautiful example from the Romeo Jorge collection is a combination of golden narra wood and red narra wood (there is a possibility that the red narra wood came from a different tree species; there is also a possibility that both shades of narra wood were cut from different sections of the same log). The top is a single piece of golden narra wood (there is a fillet on the lower right side, a repair to previous damage). There are three drawers of golden narra wood; the central drawer is bow-fronted and the flanking drawers are concave. The drawers are decorated with bone and kamagong line inlays simulating panels. There are no handles on the drawers, only the engraved silver keyholes, as this particular piece was obviously meant for storing valuables like jewelry and gold and silver coins, aside from hosting the sacred images of the household. Under the drawers is a cenefa (molding decorated with diamond) and lozenge-shaped carabao bone inlays in an interesting geometric pattern. The three aprons are of golden narra wood. The four legs and divisions of the drawers terminating in inverted round finials are all of red narra wood embellished with diamond-shaped carabao bone inlays in star patterns enclosed by linear carabao bone and kamagong wood inlays. An interesting and crucial detail is the panel of stylized pennants at the back of the table serving as an apron, also of golden narra wood, a feature characteristic of the older mesa altar or altar tables in the Baliuag style. In more recent times, “Sheraton” mesa altar / altar tables reached their utmost desirability during the 1980s when the Intramuros Administration represented by Jaime Laya, Esperanza BunagGatbonton, and Martin Tinio, and top collectors Paulino Que, Antonio Gutierrez, and Romeo Jorge, were at the pinnacle of the collecting game. Advised by leading antique dealers Ramon Villegas, Osmundo Esguerra, Romeo Bauzon, Antonio Martino, Terry Baylosis, Jean-Louis Levi, and Willie Versoza, the top collectors rhapsodized over the most beautiful and the rarest examples and admired the latest acquisitions of their peers—one entirely in tindalo wood with a bow-fronted central drawer and flanking concave drawers with magnificent Penaranda-style floral inlay (according to Martin I. Tinio, Ex Coll: Maria Tinio Romero-Buencamino estate, Ex Coll: Tinio-Imperial family; presently in the Casa Manila house museum - Intramuros Administration; it has an exact pair, Ex Coll: D. M. Guevara Foundation - Museo ng Buhay Pilipino, Maria Tinio RomeroBuencamino estate, presently in the Museo De La Salle, De La Salle University Dasmariñas, Cavite); one entirely in kamagong wood with six drawers and six feet and inlaid with carabao bone (according to Ramon N. Villegas, presently in the Paulino and Hetty Que collection); one classical example in golden narra wood with six drawers and six feet and inlaid with carabao bone, kamagong wood, and an unusual blue stone (according to Antonio Martino, Ex Coll: Dr. Eleuterio “Teyet” M. Pascual [1986], Antonio “Tony” Martino [1984–1986], Antonio “Tony” Gutierrez [1984], Governor Macario Arnedo y Sioco-Maria Espiritu y Dungo estate 1912–1984, Brgy. Capalangan, Apalit, Pampanga; Felipe Buencamino y Siojo-Juana Arnedo estate 1850–1912, Brgy. Capalangan, Apalit, Pampanga; presently in the Jose “Pitoy” Moreno estate [1987–present]).