{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":58428,"auction_id":121,"set_id":155,"lot_number":"63","artist":"Matrimonial Ah Tay Bed\nby the Ah Tay Workshop","title":null,"starting_price":2000000,"signed_dated":"Binondo, Manila <br /> 1875 - 1900","medium":"golden narra wood (stained dark)","size":"H: 100\" (254 cm) <br /> \nL: 70\" (178 cm) <br />\nW: 92 1/2\" (235 cm) <br />","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"The Don Bernardo O. Dagala family, Navotas, Rizal. The Dagalas were\na political family from Navotas town in Rizal. Don Bernardo O. Dagala\nbecame President of the Municipality of Malabon from 1903–05,\nsucceeding Canuto Celestino who was a signatory to General Emilio\nAguinaldo’s Declaration of Independence on 12 June 1898 in Kawit,\nCavite. <br /> <br />Dagala was credited for the final separation of Navotas from Malabon during the American regime by virtue of Proclamation 142 in 1906.\nAccording to family lore, Dagala was much respected by fellow\nNavoteños and even his Chief of Police Vicente Santos would courteously\nopen office and residential entrances and car doors for him. Don\nBernardo O Dagala and his wife had daughters but no sons, so from his\ndirect line, the surname Dagala died out, but not his descendants. <br /> <br />León Gallery, The Kingly Treasures Auction 2021, Makati City, 04\nDecember 2021, Lot 141","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"This matrimonial bed was created by the Chinese cabinetmaker Ah Tay of Binondo, Manila, famous for his fashionable, beautiful, and well–constructed furniture in hybrid European–Chinese–Filipino styles from 1850 to 1925. The ogee–shaped headboard features a shield–shaped cartouche surmounted by a conch shell, from which C–scrolls emanate gracefully, which then terminate inwardly and outwardly in foliar forms. The headboard, usually chamfered on both vertical backsides, is wedged between the two rear testers as well as the squash–shaped terminals of the bed frame for firm support (hence the diminutive: “Kalabasa” bed). The four testers are carved as elongated C–scrolls containing fruits, rosettes, and leaves; they are deliberately placed at inward–facing right angles to the bed. The four long sides of the canopy have arched central sections usually embellished with shells, leaves, and grapes; at the corners are four stylized pineapples which are supported by the testers. The canopy is topped with eight Sinitic finials exactly like that on the headboard. The bed frame is topped by squash halves (where the four testers are installed) on round legs with moldings that terminate in Flemish bun feet. The bed frame itself is composed of two horizontal panels, one on top of the other, connected by thick C–scrolls, rosettes and Chinese motifs on all four sides. <br /> <br />The formidable Filipiniana scholar Ramon N Villegas described the Ah Tay bed thus: “The dominant motif in the Ah Tay bed is the C–scroll. The rails supporting the bed frame, the endboards, the tester supports, and the tester are formed with baroque–influenced fretwork leaf scrolls. The bed pillars have upper and lower parts. The lower part stands on spherical feet, with mouldings on the leg until the point where it supports the bedframe, and is capped by a foliate hemisphere. The upper part or tester supports are made from long flat boards shaped and pierced with a design of nose–to–nose pincer–like scrolls positioned at an angle in the four corners of the bed. Visually, the bed pillars terminate in the pointed, bud–like ellipsoids that hold the rails of the tester together. The pointed ornamentation in the headboard suggests a faintly gothic air.” <br /> <br />Two general characteristics of the Ah Tay bed, whether matrimonial or single, are visual levity and verticality. It looks deceptively light, even if it is not (the bed itself is heavy when carried; even the individual parts like the canopy, headboard, and testers have considerable weight). It has an overall verticality; it looks tall, and some models are taller than the others. Another characteristic is that upon closer inspection, the parts are created out of large cuts of mature “golden narra” wood (in rare cases red–purple “tindalo” wood; such specimens do exist) no longer available today, at least legally (2021). The mature, dense “golden narra” wood itself was carefully chosen by the senior woodworkers, resulting in a dazzling luster when properly sanded and finished, comparable to palace furniture produced for the Bourbons of France and the Romanovs of Russia. The legs and the frames of the bed are single pieces of “golden narra” wood; the four long sides of the canopy are single pieces, sometimes but not always including the shells, leaves, and grapes that embellish the arched central sections; the headboard, however large, is a single piece of wood save for the ogee top which is an augmentation; the testers are all single pieces of “golden narra” wood. The thickness of the wooden parts is also remarkable, as they were made at a time when conservation of forest resources was not a consideration unlike now. Such discreet qualities make it virtually impossible to craft an accurate reproduction of a genuine Ah Tay bed these days (what is meant emphatically is a genuine production from the Ah Tay workshop in Binondo during the late 1800s, with all its trademark qualities, not a mediocre provincial reproduction, of which many can be easily had), oftentimes the effort is herculean, the cost prohibitive, and the result mediocre that it is better to just acquire a genuine antique specimen, the high price notwithstanding. <br /> <br />The noteworthy matrimonial Ah Tay beds still in existence are those of Maximino Molo Agustin Paterno y Yamson and Teodora Devera Ignacio y Pineda, Mariano Zamora and Martina Molo Agustin Paterno y Yamson, Benito Legarda y Tuason and Teresa de la Paz y de los Santos viuda de Severo Tuason; they are either with descendants or top antique collectors. They came from grand bahay–na–bato along elegant Calle San Sebastian (currently R Hidalgo street) in barrio San Sebastian. The most exceptional matrimonial Ah Tay bed known is the Tuason–Areopagita from a large riverside villa in Santa Ana, Manila, now in the Paulino and Hetty Que Collection. It possesses every feature of an Ah Tay bed, albeit upgraded, reinterpreted, and taken to the next level. It is impressively “Ah Tay on steroids.” Of course, Ah Tay produced beds in styles other than his own, but those will not be discussed for now.","lot_group":"FURNITURE","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":2200000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":2200000,"userBid":null,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":0,"hammer_price":2643520,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":63686,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/121/155/lot/63.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":62,"next":64,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}