PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF A DISTINGUISHED FAMILY

ABOUT THE WORK

For Gold, God and Glory A Rare Series of Botong Francisco’s Historical Vignettes by E.A. SANTAMARIA It is said that Magellan sailed to claim new lands for what modern historians have called rather artfully as ‘Gold, God, and Glory.’ Those themes are all serendipitously reflected in this rare series of historical vignettes by Carlos “Botong” V. Francisco. In 1953, Carlos “Botong” V. Francisco was commissioned to create a massive work titled “Five Hundred Years of Philippine History” for the Manila World’s Fair. It played directly to his strengths that were focused on creating a powerful iconography of the Filipino built on a pantheon of heroes and heroic events. These three panels deal with subjects familiar to the Botong canon — but also expand the usual narratives. The panel portraying the coming of Christianity, for example, combines a depiction of the conversion of Datu Humabon and the Queen Juana by the expedition’s priest, Pedro de Valderrama with another familiar scene of the burning of the idols. A young warrior raises a seated carving aloft ready to throw it into the flames indicated by an armored Spanish soldier. In the distance, alluding to the future of Catholicism, is the outline of a steepled church, one tower surrounded by scaffolding to suggest that it is still to be built. Among the Filipinos receiving the outstretched blessing are a throng whose tattoos and clothing appear to be based on the Boxer Codex drawings of Visayan nobility. Botong, after all, was renowned for his punctilious research. ‘The Manila Galleon’ panel harks back to the Chinese junks and traders hawking bolts of silk as well as the Spanish galleon being loaded with treasures that are to be found in the 1956 Pageant of Commerce in the collection of the Lopez Memorial Museum. The cloth is unfurled to the bemusement of a bejeweled (and armed) datu and his wife in the foreground. With a few strokes, Botong succeeds in transforming them into the Filipino everyman considering a purchase with his spouse. A third panel shows the conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi confronting the brash Rajah Sulayman outside the palisaded walls of the first and original city of Maynila. It is likewise a theme to be found a decade later in the 1964 opus Filipino Struggles through History enshrined at the Manila City Hall. All three panels have Botong’s inimitable style, including such details as graceful clouds and the lively hubbub of spectators; for it was this National Artist’s aim to bring alive Filipino heroism in all of history’s glorious details.