Provenance: Provenance: Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

The Nino Dormido or Sleeping Christ Child has always been a favorite icon in Philippine households and was particularly venerated during the Christmas Holidays. This particular piece consists of a small-sized ivory Nino that is of 18th-century make and has the typical pose of a child sucking its forefinger. The hair of the Nino is gilded with gold dust, as are its sandals. To give importance to the piece, the figure was placed on an oval red velvet couch that is tufted and decorated with gilded brass flowers instead of buttons. A reticulated lace-like edge of gilded metal decorates the bottom of the couch. The couch rests on a wire stand that makes the whole piece resemble a chair. The scrolled wire legs flank a tiny, beveled, hexagonal mirror decorated with flowers and leaves in the feligrana style, with each bloom and leaf attached by wires. The couch with the Nino serves as the seat, and is flanked by a tiny pair of rectangular beveled mirrors with a dove fluttering over each. What looks like the back of the chair is a trapezoidal beveled mirror painted with a spray of flowers and a blue bird. The wire chair splats are decorated with stamped brass flowers and leaves, and a reticulated arced crest form the upper chair rail. A large bird with a wreath of flowers in his beak hovers above the Nino. A tableau like this would usually be housed in a glass dome or virina, but, apparently, the one that contained this particular piece was broken at one time and never replaced. -Martin I. Tinio, Jr.