Provenance: Heirs of Dr. Alejandro Roces Legarda

ABOUT THE WORK

The Edwardian Style of furniture and interiors was named after King Edward VII, the randy son of Queen Victoria, who ruled from 1901-1910. A well-traveled man who loved luxury, his taste incorporated an eclectic mix of the Tudor, Regency and Sheraton Styles together with that of the Arts and Crafts Movement and Art Nouveau. The style was characterized by a shift from the heavy and dark interiors of the Victorian Era to light and airy rooms painted in pastel colors. Popular in England and the United States until the advent of the First World War, the furniture style was brought over to the Philippines shortly after that and remained fashionable in Philippine interiors until it was overrun by the Art Deco Movement in the late 1930s. When a secretary desk is cut in half vertically to provide an escritoire half as wide as usual on one side and a glassed door cabinet on the other, this piece of furniture is called a side-by-side secretary. When closed, the secretary desk looks like a cross between a commode-dresser, a slant top desk and a book case, the last usually made with glassed doors. This slant-top desk with a fall front, because of its delicate lines, was certainly made for a lady. Made entirely of narra, it stands on eight, slim, turned, tapering legs with bun feet that support a carcass base with projections corresponding to the entablatures of the front legs; the front and the sides of which are carved with an acanthus frieze. The central desk portion juts out, its two front feet supporting two pairs of small drawers, the ones on top of lower height than the ones below. The drawers are decorated with a molding and provided with a drawer pull carved in the shape of an open flower. The slant-top surface of the desk is framed and has carved flower drawer pulls at each upper corner. When opened, a secondary work surface is revealed with small shelves, small drawers and nooks stacked at the back. The top of the desk acts as a shelf and is backed by an arched back decorated with an acanthus frieze on top. On either side of the escritoire is a low cabinet with a framed door and a carved drawer pull. Above it are three shelves enclosed by glass at the side and a narra-framed glass door. The shelves were used to hold small books or bibelots. -Martin I. Tinio, Jr.