PROPERTY FORMERLY OF FÉLIX RESURRECCIÓN HIDALGO

Provenance: Provenance: When Félix Resurrección Hidalgo (photo below) 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 Felix, 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

The sillon fraile (friar’s lounging chair) such as this particular one made in kamagong is a chair present in the caidas or anterooms and balconies of the parish convents but found its way to the bahay-na-bato residences. It is a local version of the planter’s chairs that proliferated throughout Southeast Asia during the rise of the plantation economy in the nineteenth century. It is also wider than the typical lounging chair, with its wide caned seat always flared toward the front, as it was used to accommodate portly friars who wanted to relax, to which it got its name. Since the friars put up their legs on either arm as t hey reclined, the arms were made to flare widely toward the front. It usually stands on turned front legs and curved legs at the back and has a slightly r eclined, undulating caned back, flared upwards. In provincial mansions, this can be found in the opulent sala for visitors. - From the Archives of Martin I. Tinio Jr.