Provenance: Apalit, Pampanga

ABOUT THE WORK

A chest of drawers with an escritorio or fall front desk is not ordinary. Found only in houses whose owners were men of affairs, they were usually found in the cuarto mayor or master bedroom and thus served as the repository of important deeds or documents. Sometimes, the escritorio was made with secret drawers concealed among the numerous compartments to safeguard valuables and money. This narra chest of drawers cum escritorio, of simple form and very masculine in design, stands on four bracket feet, jigsaw-outlined on the inner side with ogive curves and cusps that form a yoke-shaped arch in front and at the sides. A convex molding is carved around the sides and front of the carcass base, and the solid side panels are line-inlaid with a strip of kamagong bordered by lanite lines that form a rectangle with quadrant corners. The chest has four drawers, the topmost one being higher than the three lower ones. All the drawer faces are line-inlaid like the sides, but each has a semicircle below the drawer keyhole decorated with an embossed oval keyhole shield. Each drawer has a keyhole oval silver shield and a pair of silver pulls, some of which are original to the piece, while others are reproductions in the same metal. Around each pull is a twelve-lobed pattern inlaid in lanite that forms the outline of a stylized flower. Inside are twelve petals, each inlaid half in lanite and half in kamagong. The topmost drawer has a fall front that converts it into a writing desk, when the drawer is pulled out and brass buttons on the inner sides are pressed. The back of the escritoire has a tiny drawer in the middle with a wide, slightly higher one, on either side. A tiny door above the middle drawer is line-inlaid with a square in kamagong and lanite. It has no pull but has a keyhole decorated by a chased silver keyhole shield. When opened, a decorative flattened ogive arch with cusps at either end is revealed. Flanking it, the space above the wide drawers are divided into two, the halves on either side of the central door in the form of a pair of vertical recesses with ogive arches and cusps at either end. The outer halves each have a pair of small drawers, one above the other. All the drawers have miniature brass pulls. The top of the escritorio consists of a narra panel, miter framed on the front sides with the same wood with mortise and tenon joints at the rear. The front and side edges off the top are appliqued with half-round kamagong molding. -Martin I. Tinio, Jr.