{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":33200,"auction_id":41,"set_id":66,"lot_number":"116","artist":"The Romeo Jorge Baliuag  Altar Comoda","title":null,"starting_price":1400000,"signed_dated":"Last Quarter of the 19th-Century","medium":"Narra, Kamagong and Bone","size":"H: 45 1/2” x L: 58 1/4” x W: 24 1/2”  (116 cm x 14","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Provenance:  Baliuag, Bulacan","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"This unusually large, rare cabinet is from a Baliuag, Bulacan  workshop and dates from the last quarter of the 19th century.  True to the Baliuag style, it is made from golden “narra” wood  and is embellished with engaged posts of dark “kamagong”wood  and various inlays of carabao bone, pale “lanite” wood, and  “kamagong” wood. It is described as a “comoda altar” by senior  antique dealers and veteran collectors, and scant examples exist in  private collections, if any at all. The top is one wide, exceptionally  burled, piece of “narra” wood with a line inlay of “lanite” and  “kamagong” wood to highlight the center. The top section above  the posts has 2 standard drawers in the middle, 2 small drawers  for candles at the edges, and in between are 4 drawers concealed  behind truncated balusters and other features. The main section  consists of 4 drawers flanked by 4 thick engaged, reeded columns  of “kamagong” wood followed by panels inlaid with 4 big  stars again flanked by thick reeded, engaged columns of  “kamagong.” The main section is supported by an apron  decorated with various inlays that rests on 7 turned, urn-shaped  feet (4 in front and 3 at the rear). Noteworthy to the connoisseurs  and collectors of Baliuag furniture are the unusual, rare, and fanciful  shapes — squares, rectangles, triangles, diamonds, lozenges — as  well as the unusual placements of the carabao bone, “kamagong”  wood and “lanite” wood in this particular piece.  This “comoda altar,” a large cabinet of ‘narra’ wood adorned with  ‘kamagong’ wood, ‘lanite’ wood, and carabao bone distinguished  by several hidden compartments was a custom/bespoke production  of a Baliuag workshop for a special client;it was not part of the  regular repertoire available commercially. It was a variant of the  combination “aparador-chest” which senior antique dealer and  early Filipino furniture historian Mrs Milagros Covarrubias-Jamir  described in a 1978 monograph as the crowning glory of  Baliuag-style regional furniture. Most Baliuag case furniture was  generally of 3 types: the “mesa altar” with 2 drawers and 2 doors  flanked by 4 “kamagong” or “narra” posts, the “comoda” with  four drawers (sometimes with a dropfront top drawer with  compartments as “escritorio,” sometimes flanked by 4 “kamagong” posts), and the “aparador,” usually medium-sized (not  large), with 2 doors, usually without decorative posts. The  standard depth of such pieces was only in the range of 38 cm, not  much more.  This hybrid type of Baliuag furniture was only produced for affluent  clients, inevitably from leading “hacendero” landowning and merchant  families. Few pieces are known and documented. They would have  beenowned only by the leading, old families of Bulacan (Baliuag: Rustia,  Ponce, Gonzalez, Fores, et al; San Miguel de Mayumo: Siojo,  Buencamino, de Leon, Tecson, Revilla, Mossessgeld, et al; Malolos:  Tiongson, Bautista, Tantoco, Tanchanco, Reyes, et al) as well as those of  Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, and Tarlac. Unfortunately, few have survived  “Americanization,” changing tastes, World War II, postwar  modernization and fewer still have reached the antique market.  Famous examples are an award-winning cabinet with unusual foliar  inlays in the Mr. Paulino Que collection (found by Mr Osmundo Esguerra) and the classical, elegantly inlaid Don Francisco de Yriarte cabinet  in the Mr. Antonio Gutierrez collection. Two magnificent, singular  examples of this hybrid type not seen publicly are in the Mr. Luis Ma  Araneta collection (Ex Coll: an old family of Baliuag, Bulacan) and in the  Gonzalez-Arnedo collection (Ex Coll: Don Macario Arnedo, Governor of  Pampanga).  Mr. Romeo Jorge is an industrialist with a fortune based in agribusiness.  In the early 1980s, he was one of the most active of the big collectors  of Philippine art and antiques, along with the Intramuros Administration  (represented by Mr Jaime C Laya, Mrs Esperanza Bunag-Gatbonton,  and Mr. Martin Imperial Tinio Jr), businessman and heir to a massive real  estate fortune Mr. Paulino Que, and leading sugar executive Mr. Antonio  Gutierrez. The four big collectors were renowned for their excellent taste  and scholarship, along with the requisite impressive resources. All the  best things that entered the market were first offered to them — in turns  clandestine, cunning, scheming, dramatic, even comic — by the leading  art and antique dealers of the day — Mr. Romeo Bauzon, Mr Terry  Baylosis, Mr. Antonio Martino, Mr. Willie Versoza and Mr. Jean-Louis Levy,  Mrs. Severina de Asis, Mr. Osmundo Esguerra, Mr. Ramon N. Villegas,  Mrs. Cristina Ongpin-Roxas, and Mr. Gerry Esposo and Ms Liza Rama.  Competition among the four was fierce albeit polite. Four decades later  in 2019, the magnificent collections of the Intramuros Administration,  Mr. Paulino Que, Mr. Antonio Gutierrez, and Mr Romeo Jorge remain  as landmarks of excellence in the field of Philippine art and antiques,  with each and every piece bearing rarity and importance in the national  legacy.  - Mr Augusto Marcelino Reyes Gonzalez III","lot_group":"FURNITURE","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":6500000,"bp":0.168,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":6500000,"userBid":5927,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":7592000,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":31153,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/41/66/lot/116.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":115,"next":117,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}