{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":14643,"auction_id":14,"set_id":26,"lot_number":"50","artist":"Betsy Westendorp (1927 - 2022)","title":"Portrait of Doña Nene Quimson in Valentino","starting_price":400000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1991 (lower left)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"64\" x 48\" (163 cm x 122 cm)","property":"PROPERTY FROM THE DOÑA NENE QUIMSON COLLECTION","coa":null,"provenance":null,"exhibited":null,"literature":"Reyes, Cid. Betsy Westendorp (Volume 1). De La Salle University Publishing House. 2017. p. 81.","write_up":"Nene’s elder son John remembers: “Mom was old school and there was a certain formality to her, a certain distance. One could not be a ‘cozy friend’ with her, she just wasn’t the kind. Even we kids couldn’t approach her out of the blue… there was a certain way that that had to be done. I guess she belonged to that conservative generation. You know, the perfect manners and distance and all. Nene’s elder son John remembers: “Mom was old school and there was a certain formality to her, a certain distance. One could not be a ‘cozy friend’ with her, she just wasn’t the kind. Even we kids couldn’t approach her out of the blue… there was a certain way that that had to be done. I guess she belonged to that conservative generation. You know, the perfect manners and distance and all.
\n“She was always well–groomed and well–dressed as soon as she was out of her room, even in “pambahay” houseclothes at home. All the more whenever she was partying in town.
\n “Life at home with Mom was organized. Breakfast was a casual affair with everything on the table or on the long cabinet at the side and pretty much ‘serve yourself.’ However, lunch and dinner were formal, dressy ones. You know, all those plates and glasses and cutlery and staff to move everything. That was how we lived everyday with Mom.
\n“However, despite all the formalities, we kids knew she loved all of us unconditionally.”
\nNene Tuason–Quimson was among the very last of the patrician grandes dames of Manila.
\nNene Tuason–Quimson with her resources and style joined the likes of lawyer–businesswoman Chito Paterno Madrigal, the swanlike sylph Meldy de la Paz Ongsiako–Cojuangco, the impossibly chic Baby Araneta–Fores, and a very few others in the pantheon of the all–time great Filipina ladies (from prewar: Victoria Ledesma Lopez–Araneta, Pacita Ongsiako de los Reyes, Conching Chuidian Sunico). As the esteemed social columnist Maurice Arcache liked to say: “Beauty, Brains, Breeding, and Bucks!!!” It’s one thing to have an inheritance and it’s entirely another thing to have style. (Many heiresses and socialites do not have style.) But to have both is an amazing privilege granted to very few. It is not enough to marry into a fortune, one must be born to it, and then, one must develop the style commensurate to one’s resources in order to be regarded as one of the “social greats.” Tall order. There is no style where there are no resources, after all. And then the requisite heart of gold: Nene was a generous giver and had many charities but in true patrician fashion kept them mostly to herself. As Carolina Tuason y Gil de Sola de Zaragoza, another Tuason grande dame (daughter of Gonzalo Tuason y Patino and Isabel Gil de Sola, illegitimate daughter of Reina Isabel II de Espana), used to advise family members: “You know what you have, others don’t have to know.” In those respects, there were essentially no differences between the American legends Marjorie Merriweather Post and Doris Duke and the Filipinas Chito Paterno Madrigal and Nene Tuason–Quimson.
\nACKNOWLEDGMENTS : \n “Teresa de la Paz and her Two Husbands: A Gathering of Four Families” \n“Primos Unidos” \n“The World of Felix Roxas” C \nonsuelo Tuason Quimson \n John Tuason Quimson \nNilda T. Resano, Dulia Prado, & Eleanor Sy–Templeman \n__________________ \nJaime Ponce de Leon \nLisa Guerrero Nakpil \n\nLOS TUASON DE MANILA \nJose Maria Zaragoza Tuason (“Pindong,” +1982) was a son of Demetrio Asuncion Tuason y de la Paz (“Queso”) and Natividad Zaragoza y Roxas.
\n\nDemetrio Tuason y de la Paz and Natividad Zaragoza y Roxas had seven children: Jose Maria Zaragoza Tuason (“Pindong”) married Magdalena Locsin del Rosario (“Nening”); Carmen Zaragoza Tuason (“Carmencita”) married Alejandro Roces Legarda (“Mandu”); Nicasio Zaragoza Tuason married Pilar Lim (“Pilaring”); Celso Zaragoza Tuason married Rosario Remedios (“Chiching”); Lourdes Zaragoza Tuason (“Lulu”) married 1) Eduardo Matute (“Danding”) 2) Ignacio Lacson Arroyo; Severo Antonio Zaragoza Tuason (“Toto”) married Paz Jurado Acuna (“Ning”); Teresa Zaragoza Tuason (“Teresing”) married Emilio Gonzalez LaO’.
\n\nDemetrio Asuncion Tuason y de la Paz (“Queso”) was a son of Jose Severo Tuason y Patino (o 1833 – + 03 February 1874), fourth Lord of the Tuason “mayorazgo” (noble estate) and the Marikina native Teresa de la Paz y de los Santos (o 15 October 1841 – +1890).
\n\nJose Severo Tuason y Patino and Teresa de la Paz y de los Santos had seven children: Jose Victoriano Tuason y de la Paz (1864–78, heir presumptive to the Tuason “mayorazgo”; he died young at 13 years in an accident in Metz, Germany [now in France] ); Juan Jose Tuason y de la Paz (“Tintong,” 1865–1916) married Rosario Gonzalez of Cadiz, Spain (“Lolai”); Maria Teresa Eriberta Tuason y de la Paz (“Tata,” 1867–1951, spinster); Mariano Severo Tuason y de la Paz (1868–1940, bachelor); Demetrio Asuncion Tuason y de la Paz (“Queso,” 1870–1927) married (1) Ellen Foley (2) Natividad Zaragoza y Roxas (“Naty”); Augusto Umberto Tuason y de la Paz (1872–1936) married Maria Paves; Maria Soterrana Cristina Tuason y de la Paz (“Muti,” 1873–1936) married Vicente Garcia–Valdes.
\n\nAfter the untimely passing of Jose Severo on 03 February 1874 at only 41 years of age, Teresa the young 32 year–old widow married his 21 year–old relative, Benito Cosme Legarda y Tuason II (o 27 September 1853 – + 27 August 1915) on 07 March 1875 and they had three children: Benito Legarda y de la Paz III (“Bitong”) married the Barcelona–educated heiress Filomena Roces y Gonzalez; Consuelo Legarda y de la Paz (“Titang”) married the real estate heir and tobacco company executive Mauro Prieto y Gorricho; Rita Legarda y de la Paz (“Chata”) married (1) L James Donaldson–Sim (British manager of the Manila Railroad Company) (2) Dr Benito Valdes y Salvador.
\nNatividad Zaragoza y Roxas was a daughter of Jose Zaragoza y Aranquizna and Rosa Roxas y Arce (“Chata”). Jose Zaragoza was a man of letters and a bon vivant who published the important, landmark magazine “La Ilustracion Filipina” for several years; he was a Spanish mestizo, a son of the Spanish auditor of “Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas,” the precursor of the behemoth “Tabacalera” tobacco company. Rosa Roxas y Arce was a businesswoman/entrepreneur par excellence whose main investments were in Manila commercial and residential real estate; among many Manila properties, she owned seven large houses (one for each child) along upscale Calle San Sebastian (later Calle R Hidalgo), the most elegant neighborhood of Manila from the 1830s to the 1870s. Rosa Roxas y Arce was a member of the patrician Roxas clan of Manila, a granddaughter of Antonio Roxas y Ureta and Lucina Arroyo both from Binondo) and was a second cousin to the heiress sisters Carmen de Ayala y Roxas de Roxas and Trinidad de Ayala y Roxas de Zóbel (granddaughters of Domingo Roxas y Ureta, Antonio Roxas’ brother; Domingo and Antonio were the sons of Mariano Roxas and Ana Maria de Ureta).
\n\nA sister of Natividad, Carmen Zaragoza y Roxas, married Atty Gregorio Araneta y Soriano from Molo, Iloilo and begat the Araneta de R Hidalgo clan. A brother, Elias, married Rosario Velez y Infante, a Spanish mestiza hacendera from Guagua, Pampanga. Another brother, Salvador Zaragoza y Roxas, married the heiress Carolina Tuason y Gil de Sola, daughter of Gonzalo Tuason y Patino and Isabel Gil de Sola (viuda de Agustin Westernhagen, onetime owner of Botica Boie), an illegitimate daughter of Reina Isabel II de Espana. Natividad’s youngest sister, Margarita Zaragoza y Roxas, married Carlos Preysler y Gonzales; Margarita was the great–grandmother of the famous Spanish–Filipina socialite Isabel Arrastia Preysler.
\n\nThe Tuason clan goes back more than 260 years to the times before the British Occupation of Manila from 1762–64. During the first half of the 1700s, an industrious Sangley trader from Fujian named Son Tua settled in the Manila entrepot to expedite his business of exporting basic commodities and luxury goods of Chinese origin to the galleons of the lucrative but risky Manila–Acapulco trade. Grown rich through many years of hard work and serendipity, Son Tua volunteered his services to the Spaniards for the defense of Manila against the British. After the British left Manila in 1764, the Spaniards rewarded the loyal Son Tua with a land grant: He could own all the land he could traverse in one day. The shrewd Son Tua stationed many horses in various locations in the lands he wanted. His horses galloped through vast lands in what are now Quezon city and Marikina city. He covered thousands of hectares on that single day. Son Tua later hispanized his name to Antonio Maria Tuason.
\n\nIn 1795, the Spanish King Carlos IV gave the Antonio Maria Tuason family the right to establish a “mayorazgo” noble estate that would descend with primogeniture like the Spanish aristocracy. Thus, the Tuasons were the only Filipino family raised to the Spanish “hidalguia” nobility, the only ones of Chinese origin, in fact.
\n\nAntonio Maria’s son Vicente Dolores, the second Lord of the Tuason “mayorazgo,” purchased the 3,000–hectare Hacienda de Mariquina and added it to the family holdings. Vicente Dolores’ son Mariano Tuason, the third Lord of the “mayorazgo,” purchased the Hacienda de Santa Mesa/Nagtahan and also added it to the family holdings. Marikina and Santa Mesa, Diliman, and Cubao in Quezon city, were the areas most associated with the extremely affluent Tuason family.
\n\nThe Antonio Maria Tuasons were the first Chinese–Filipino family to attain great wealth and prominence in all of Manila and Las Islas Filipinas from 1764 followed by the rise of the Indo–Portuguese Barretto and Spanish Rocha families in the 1780s, the Spanish mestizo industrialist Domingo Roxas in the 1830s (Roxas–de Ayala–Zóbel–Soriano), the Spanish cavalryman Jose Damaso de Gorricho in the 1840s (Pardo de Tavera and Prieto), the Sangley trader Palanca Tan–Quien–Sen in the 1850s (Limjap, et al; Palanca Tan–Guin–Lay a later fortune), the Chinese mestizo trader and ship chandler Maximino Paterno Molo de San Agustin in the 1860s (Paterno and Madrigal), and the other Chinese– Filipino taipans in the 1880s–90s (Mariano Velasco Chuachengco, Telesforo Chuidian, Mariano Limjap y Barrera, Ariston Bautista y Lintingco, Guillermo Cu–Unjieng). During the Revolution of 1896, two of the richest Spanish–Filipinos Pedro Pablo Roxas y de Castro and Gonzalo Tuason y Patino, found political refuge in Paris, France, never to return to the motherland.
\n\nAnd that is how the Tuason, Legarda, Prieto, Valdes, Nieto, Rocha, Barretto, Calvo, Roces, Roxas, de Ayala, Zóbel, Soriano, Melian, Zaragoza, Araneta (de R Hidalgo), Velez, Infante, Brias, Toda, Preysler, de Gorricho, Pardo de Tavera families are all interrelated/interconnected. And by a stretch, the Ugarte, Aboitiz, and Ortigas families as well. By blood and marriage.
\n\nACKNOWLEDGMENTS: \n“Teresa de la Paz and her Two Husbands: A Gathering of Four Families” \n “Primos Unidos” \n“The World of Felix Roxas” \nSalvador Zaragoza Araneta Benito J Fernandez Legarda \nGeorgina Zóbel Padilla–Macrohon \nRosemarie Tuason Toda–Delgado","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":"
Betsy Westendorp (1927 - 2022) Portrait of Doña Nene Quimson in Valentino signed and dated 1991 (lower left) oil on canvas 64\" x 48\" (163 cm x 122 cm)