{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":1845,"auction_id":4,"set_id":5,"lot_number":"120","artist":"Two Tapestries from Miag-ao, Iloilo","title":"a.) Two-Panel Tinguian-style Miag-ao Tapestry I with Dancing Figures and Animal Motifs<br> b.) Two-Panel Tinguian-style Miag-ao Tapestry II with Dancing Figures and Animal Motifs","starting_price":500000,"signed_dated":"Possibly late 19th-century","medium":"handspun cotton, organic dye.<br /> Supplementary weft, single warped face<br /> <br /> Condition report: Some damage due to age","size":"a) Length: 80\" (204 cm) <br /> Left panel width: 26 3/4\" (68 cm)<br /> Right panel width: 27 1/2\" (70 cm) <br /> Total Width: 53 1/4\" (138 cm)<br /> b) Length: 63\" (160.5 cm) <br /> Left panel width: 24 1/2\" (62 cm)<br /> Right panel width: 22 3/4\" (58 cm) <br /> Total Width: 47\" (120 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Lourdes Dellota, Iloilo<br />\nRoland Go, Baguio","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"These enigmatic textiles pose many questions about the nature of trade in the Philippines in earlier times. Not only the inter-island trade of material goods, but the exchanges of culture and technology, of optics and motifs, of ideas and their re-interpretations when transported to different settings.<br /><br /> First, a little bit about the history of these pieces. They were found by the dealer-collector Rolando Go in Iloilo city sometime in the mid 1980s. Go, who passed away in 2018, was one of the top dealers in Indigenous art. He was based in Baguio, and counted among his many clients, Ramon Tapales, Dave Barradas, Angel Lontok Cruz, Joaquin Palencia, Ramon Villegas as well as many of the visiting French and American dealers.<br /><br /> His outstanding collection of Cordillera textiles was purchased by Senator Nikki Coseteng in the late 1980s. Many of Go’s signal pieces were published in the book, “Sinaunang Habi”,written by Marian Pastor-Roces and published by Nikki Coseteng.<br /><br />On a personal note, Mr. Go was a dear friend who mentored and guided me when,as a young man, I developed an interest in the art of the Cordilleras. I remember how he showed me these two textiles after he had purchased them and how he excitedly (he was always passionate about objects) told me about their discovery.<br /><br /> Oh, he was ever the adventurer, travelling to many places in the Philippines to “discover” (his favorite word) objects and learn about their stories. In Iloilo, he was browsing in the shop of Lourdes Dellota (another legend in the field of Philippine antique dealing), when he spotted the first textile. It was then being used as mantle on a table loaded with santos. He asked to see it and was immediately struck by the similarity to Itneg/ Tingguian textiles. He was told by Dellota that it wasn’t from Abra in Luzon, but from Miag-ao in Iloilo. Because of the condition, Roland bought it for a song. I remember him telling me that in his excitement, he hired a jeepney to bring him to Miag-ao. There, he walked around the town, blanket in hand, asking random locals what they knew about it. His Eureka moment came when he espied, hanging on a clothesline, a near perfect example which he bought on the spot.<br /><br /> He was told that these textiles used to be very plentiful, and were produced in Miag-ao ( to this day, still a premiere weaving center for hablon ). They were not blankets, but tapestries that would be hung from the window sills during fiestas and special occasions. However, he was unable to find anymore.<br /><br />He treasured these two pieces above all else, and did not include them in the Coseteng sale. Instead, after some time, he sold them to Angel Lontok Cruz, who brought them to Amsterdam.<br /><br /> Scholar, curator, author and museologist, Dr. Analyn Salvador-Amores, identifies the two techniques used in weaving these. The supplementary weft technique was used to weave most of the piece. The rarer and harder to execute lower panel employed the single warped face technique, producing an embossed effect similar to the raised Trapunto technique.<br /><br />The supplementary weft portion is decorated with a motif very similar to (but more crudely rendered than) the eight-point star motifs common in Itneg pinilian blankets. It is in the lower, single warped face portion where the more intriguing motifs are found.<br /><br />Both borders show a female figure in a farthingale skirt, her arms upraised. She is crowned with some kind of a three-point diadem. In both textiles, this female figure is the central motif. While there are slight variations in the treatment (the marks of individual weavers?), the configuration remains the same.<br /><br />The design repertoire in both panels also include: <br /><br />*An unidentified animal with a paw upraised, possibly a reference to the symbol of the Lion Rampant from the Spanish seal.<br /> *An abstracted reference to the Hapsburg double- headed eagle, also the emblem of the Augustinian order, of whom the Hapsburgs were patrons<br /> *A smaller quadruped animal (dog?) <br />*A frieze of upright and inverted triangles.<br /><br />It is worth noting that all the motifs found in the Miag-o examples also exist in the Itneg textile repertoire. A recently discovered Itneg blanket in a private collection shows these designs covering the entire field of the textile.<br /><br />Besides the execution of the motifs, another difference is in the construction. Itneg textiles created using the narrow backstrap loom, were constructed using three panels, handstitched together. The Miag-ao examples, given the wider looms introduced by the Spanish, are made up of only two panels. Still, the visual similarities, as well as their different points of origin evince a textile/ technique/ motif tradition once shared by both the animist Itneg as well as the Christian Ilonggo. That is clear. But who influenced whom?<br /><br />Collector Emil Marañon points out that both Ilocos/ Abra and Iloilo were, in Spanish times, placed under the Augustinian order. It was common practice then to periodically rotate priests from one province to another, bringing items of local manufacture from their previous postings, for exchange or as examples of crafts worth developing in their new posts. This could be a plausible source of the shared conventions.<br /><br /> Marian Roces,to whom Roland also showed these textiles to, has this to say about the Miag-ao textiles:<br /><br />“The blankets do not lend themselves to diffusionist conjecture. Both specimens exhibit adequate distinctiveness to merit appraisal and exploration on their own qualities. They are best understood within the framework of the site of original acquisition: Panay island, where, historically, textile traditions have thrived. The look and feel of today’s known traditions (piña, for example with supplementary weft floats, and the plaid, plain_x0002_woven cotton patadyong material called hablon) need not preclude other totally different forms from the past.<br /><br />The supplementary weft yarn as well as the foundation matrix of these pieces are of hand-spun cotton. The blue is from indigo; the red, most likely another organic colorant (pending scientific verification, Morinda citrifolia, bangkoro). The repetitive patterns composed within the grid do resemble the Itneg / Ilokano aesthetic—however, these Miag-ao pieces were executed to have wider spaces within the motifs, and not as a result of lesser skill.<br /><br />The remarkable female figure do not resemble any iconographic tradition in the Philippines, except with a truly rare Bagobo weft ikat specimen which has been in the American Museum of National History since 1910. It also bears mentioning that there is semblance with female figures from Indonesia’s Nusa Tenggara Timor (notably Sumba) and Sumatra. The resemblance cannot be interpreted as diffusion.<br /><br />These are therefore extremely rare weaving which deserves the concentrated attention of scholars.<br /><br /> Given the renewed public interest in indigenous textiles and their manufacture, these two pieces are of singular importance. Because of the questions they pose, and the possibilities of further study and scholarship that they open, these textiles are clearly treasures of national importance.","lot_group":"OBJET D' ARTS","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":2200000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":2200000,"userBid":6329,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":2643520,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":1849,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/4/5/lot/120.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":1871,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/4/5/lot/120d.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":1854,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/4/5/lot/120c.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":1853,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/4/5/lot/120b.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":1850,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/4/5/lot/120a.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"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":119,"next":121,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}