Provenance: Provenance: Iloilo Don Lucio Lacson Heirs of Petronila Lacson Yusay

ABOUT THE WORK

Every self-respecting house usually had a display cabinet or platera in the comedor or dining room to hold china, silver and glassware. Rich households, however, often had large dining rooms and, by necessity, needed large cabinets to hold the stuff needed for entertaining. It was thus not unusual to have separate cabinets to hold specific objects. Foremost among them would be the aparador de vajillas or vajillera, a cabinet for storing sets of chinaware. Another would be the aparador para cristaleria, a cabinet for holding glassware, usually wine glasses. Then there would be the aparador para la plata, usually called a platera or cabinet for silver holloware. Nowadays, people who do not speak Spanish mistakenly think that the platera is for plates, not knowing that the word for porcelain plates in Spanish is losa. This pair of large display cabinets certainly belonged to a very rich household with a huge comedor or dining room. Its size and grandiose proportions are evidence of great wealth and lavish hospitality. They must have been used as a platera and as a vajillera in days gone by. The cabinet rests on four vase-shaped feet and a wide apron with an engaged three-quarter drum at each of the front corners. Engaged colonnettes with identical trios of rings and reels decorate the bottom and top of each shaft that is carved with a single reed. They flank a pair or framed doors with four glass panels on each that, when opened, reveal four shelves. The top of the aparador has a wide entablature with an engaged three-quarter drum above the colonette at each side. The drums are carved with an undulating surface for contrast. The cabinet is topped by an arched crest with a wide cymatium molding and a series of beaded dentils running all around the front and the sides. -Martin I. Tinio, Jr.