Provenance: Workshop of Isabelo and Vidal Tampinco, Manila Don Isauro Gonzales Gabaldon Senen Tinio Gabaldon Maria Luisa Valera Gabaldon de Campos Heirs of Maria Luisa Valera Gabaldon vda. de Campos

ABOUT THE WORK

Isauro Gonzales Gabaldon, the son of a Spanish Colonel and a Filipina, was born in San Isidro, then the capital of Nueva Ecija. When his father, the Provincial Head of the Guardia Civil, returned to Spain, he brought along his son who attended the public schools in Tebar, his father's hometown in Cuenca, Spain. Isauro studied law in the Universidad Central de Madrid but had to take courses in the University of Santo Tomas in Manila in order to qualify for the Philippine Bar Exams. He practiced law from 1903 to 1906, when he married the fabulously rich heiress, Bernarda Tinio. With the influence of the Tinio Clan of Nueva Ecija, he became the Vice-Governor of the Province of Nueva Ecija in 1903 and Provincial Governor in 1906. In 1907 he resigned to run as a Delegate to the First National Assembly, where he served from 1907-1911. It was during his term that he authored the ‘Gabaldon School Act’, the 1st Act of the National Assembly that allocated P100,000 annually for 15 years to build a school in every municipality in the Philippine Islands. He served in the Philippine Senate from 1916 to 1919 and was elected as a Nationalist and a Resident Commissioner to the United States in 1920. He was reelected to the same position in 1923 and 1925, and served until his resignation in July 1928. Upon his return from Washington, DC, he decided to build a house in Sta. Mesa across the Club Tiro el Blanco, where he could indulge in his nightly game of poker just by crossing the street. All the furniture for the house was commissioned from Isabelo and Vidal Tampingco, then the foremost furniture makers of the time. This pair of bookcases of ebonized narra was made for his library. Each section consists of 2 parts, a low 2-door cabinet with a detachable, narrower, glass-fronted bookshelf above. The design is simple and very masculine, but the proportions of the piece are beautiful and the workmanship is very fine. 101 The Gabaldon Bookshelves (a pair) Late 1920s Ebonized Narra and Glass a.) H: 86” x L: 43 1/4” x W: 23 1/2” (218 cm x 110 cm x 60 cm) b.) H: 86” x 46 1/2” x 23” (218 cm x 118 cm 58 cm) P 240,000 Provenance: Workshop of Isabelo and Vidal Tampinco, Manila Don Isauro Gonzales Gabaldon Senen Tinio Gabaldon Maria Luisa Valera Gabaldon de Campos Heirs of Maria Luisa Valera Gabaldon vda. de Campos The lower section stands on a plain recessed plinth and has a pair of framed doors, each with a brass pull, flanked on either side by a vertical ornamental panel carved with scrollwork. When opened a shelf for documents is revealed. The top is edged with a rope molding that runs along the front and sides. The upper, detachable bookcase consists of a narrower cabinet with 4 shelves and a pair of wooden-framed glass doors and sides. At each corner of the cabinet is attached a colonnette on a plinth with a rope-like shaft on a base of turned rings and a reel and a capital composed of a pair of turned rings flanked by reels above and below a flaring urn carved with lotus petals. The colonettes support and entablature with a rope molding at the bottom and a plain frieze surmounted by a bed-moulding carved with an acanthus frieze and topped by a cymatium molding. The entire piece is skillfully ebonized to the extent that one has to look at the reverse side of the paneling to discover that the entire piece is made of narra. -Martin I. Tinio, Jr.