Provenance: Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

This tableau of the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, and the Child Jesus appears to be of the Holy Family or Sagrada Familia. The stances of the Virgin and that of St. Joseph, however, are very different from regular depictions of the Holy Family. Closer inspection shows that the hands of the Virgin are that of an Inmaculada Concepcion, while the San Jose with the Nino stood on its own. Apparently, these were once two separate images contained in individual virinas or bell jars. When their glass cases were broken, their gold embroidered vestments deteriorated and the figures ended up in storage. When the images were sold, the new owner decided to put them together in a tableau as seen today. The Blessed Virgin, originally an Inmaculada Concepcion, and the St. Joseph with the Child Jesus in his arms all have ivory heads, hands, and feet attached to baticuling mannequins. They all have beautifully carved faces, as well as hands with delicate fingers, commonly known as daliring hugis kandila (Tagalog for ‘fingers tapering like candles’), a colonial idea of aristocratic beauty. The beard of the San Jose is finely and beautifully carved. The images stand on a rectangular base consisting of a plinth with molding on the edges and chamfered corners. The chamfered base of the plinth has extensions that are surmounted by acanthus scrollwork. The whole thing was meant to be gilded and painted in polychrome, but has been left unfinished.