{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":45752,"auction_id":92,"set_id":121,"lot_number":"99","artist":"Attributed to Juan Arceo (1795 – 1865)","title":"Portrait of a Senior Lady of the Azcarraga Family  (Possibly Sra Da Maria Isidra Palmero y Verzosa de Lizarraga in her 50s)","starting_price":700000,"signed_dated":"(1850 – 75)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"32 1/2\" x 24\" (83 cm x 61 cm)","property":"PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF A VERY DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN <br />","coa":null,"provenance":"Private Collection, Spain","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"The affluent Spanish lady in the portrait --- probably a widow --- is dressed in the European women’s fashion of the 1850s: a black dress, lace collar, blue– beribboned pagoda sleeves with passementerie/tassel trimmings, blue –beribboned and ruffled lace cuffs, corseted and gathered tight waist, and a billowing crinoline skirt with a horsehair petticoat. Her hair is swept up in a loose chignon. She is suitably bejeweled: girandole earrings of gold and diamonds, a brooch of gold and diamonds on her chest, a long chain of gold with a Victorian locket (or a Filipino “alfajor” or “tamburin” pendant), and a gold and diamond ring on the ring finger of her right hand. It was the elaborate midcentury fashion set by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Empress Eugenie of France.<br /><br /> This mid–nineteenth century portrait was acquired by a keen– eyed Spanish –Basque collector from an arts and antiques dealer in Valencia, Espana who casually mentioned that it had come from “Familia de Azcarraga.” The provenance linked it to General Marcelo de Azcarraga y Palmero (1832– 1915), a distinguished Prime Minister of Spain under SM El Rey Alfonso XIII from 1897, 1900– 01, 1904–05. General de Azcarraga was the only prime minister of Spain with Filipino blood as his mother was a Spanish–Basque mestiza from Albay province in the Bicol region --- Sra Da Maria Isidra Palmero y Verzosa de Lizarraga. General de Azcarraga had an illustrious military and political career with many royal awards. He married an American–Cuban railway, banking, and warehousing heiress Srta Margarita Fesser y Diago and they had five children: Carlos dA y F, Margarita dA y F de Trenor Palavicino (1o Marquesa de Turia), Maria dA y F, Jose Maria dA y F, and Maria del Carmen dA y F. General de Azcarraga established his family in Madre Espana.<br /><br /> General Marcelo de Azcarraga was the second of the many children of General Jose de Azcarraga y Ugarte of Bizkaia, Euzkal Herria (Vizcaya, Basque country) and his Spanish mestiza wife Sra Da Maria Isidra Palmero y Verzosa de Lizarraga of Albay province in the Bicol peninsula. The de Azcarraga–Palmero family spent many happy and prosperous years in Manila. One of General Jose’s occupations was operating a bookstore along the prestigious Escolta. The couple General Jose and Dona Maria Isidra commissioned the local painter Juan Arceo (Juan Arzeo) of San Fernando de Dilao (now Paco) to depict them with two of their children in full European attire along with the “india” governess in native dress on 16 February 1824. Almost four years later in November 1827, they commissioned Arceo again to depict two of their younger children Jose and Pilar de Azcarraga y Palmero in full European attire with the “india” governess in native dress. Even in those early days, oil portraits were expensive in Manila, and Arceo certainly charged the de Azcarraga y Palmero family a few gold coins for his works.<br /><br /> The interesting provenance ties in because contemporary de Azcarraga descendants still reside in Valencia and Madrid. The most prominent descendant, the Marques de Turia, maintains residences in the two cities.<br /><br /> The late art professor, critic, and historian Dr Santiago Albano Pilar aka Jack Pilar spoke consistently of three early Filipino portraitists: Juan Arceo/Juan Arzeo (1795–1865), Damian Domingo (1796–1834), and Severino Flavier Pablo (1805–75). Their works are mostly in museums, churches, and great private collections. However, erstwhile unseen and undocumented works from old family collections still appear occasionally at auctions, to the great delight of collectors and to the confusion of scholars and researchers. There is still an elusive, unseen 1830s Severino Flavier Pablo portrait of D Josef Sioco (1786–1864), ur–ancestor of the Arnedo, Escaler, and Gonzalez clans of barrio Sulipan, Apalit, Pampanga in a very private Manila residence.<br /><br /> Top art connoisseur, scholar, and dealer Pacifico Gonzales is described by venerable, senior art and antiques dealer Maria Cristina Consing Ongpin– Roxas as “having the best eye for Filipino masters in the Manila art business.” He is very familiar with the Spanish art, gallery, and estate sales scene, studied the painting intensely and did not evaluate it as Spanish, but Filipino. Despite the Victorian hairstyle, dress, and jewelry, some details about the face with its Oriental cast, the hands, the armature, distinctive brushwork, and flattened perspective were unmistakably Filipino. He posited that it is the work of the painter Juan Arceo (1795–1865) or less likely the younger Ysidro Arceo (1840–1900), who painted the portrait of Urbana David formerly in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Collection and now in the National Museum.<br /><br /> Esteemed multimedia artist and portraitist to Manila high society and culturati Rafael del Casal took a first look at the portrait and thought it Spanish. Everything Spanish. “Yes, there were naïve artists in Spain in the nineteenth century. Even in the eighteenth, seventeenth...”. However, upon his close inspection, there were details that were not quite Spanish after all: the rendition of the face, the hands, the armature, distinctive brushwork, and flattened perspective. Del Casal is a conservative who thinks that to attribute the portrait to an early Filipino artist from around 1775–1825 is a stretch. However, he concedes that it was entirely possible that a Spanish lady, indeed any Spanish expatriate, could have commissioned an oil portrait of herself in all her European finery from a Filipino artist in Manila while in residence here. Similar to this one.<br /><br /> Gawad CCP awardee production designer Gino Gonzales \ndescribed the lady’s dress as “1850s, Victorian, lace collar, \npagoda sleeves, lace cuffs, crinoline skirt.” It was the fashion \nin Paris at the onset of the reign of Emperor Napoleon III \nand Empress Eugenie, the Empire Deuxieme/Second \nEmpire period 1852–70. For Gonzales, due to the fact that \nthe portrait was made in Manila, it was highly possible \nthat the lace collar and cuffs were of local, embroidered \n“pina” (pineapple) textile instead of the standard French, <br /><br />British, or Belgian lace. Gonzales explained further that \nlocal embroidered “pina” pineapple textiles --- every bit as \nexquisite as the finest European lace --- were exported from \nManila to Europe during the nineteenth century. <br /><br />Few works of the early Filipino painter Juan Arceo/Juan \nArzeo are in existence, but what survive are major works. \nThere are signed large paintings of saints and bishops in the \ncollections of the San Agustin Church and Convent Museum, \nthe IA Intramuros Administration, and the Museo Franciscano \nin Manila, Philippines as well as in the Museo Oriental of El \nReal Colegio de los Padres Agustinos in Valladolid, Espana. \nRecent additions to his known works are the two signed \nfamily portraits painted in Manila from the Azcarraga estate \nin Madrid, Espana which emerged at auction in late 2015 \nand which have since been repatriated to the Philippines. \nThe one of the Azcarraga y Palmero family with the “india” \ngoverness (General Jose de Azcarraga y Ugarte and his wife \nSra Da Maria Isidra Palmero y Verzosa de Lizarraga and \ntheir children) was dated 16 February 1824 and the one \nof two children with the “india” governess (Srto Jose and \nSrta Pilar Azcarraga y Palmero) was dated November 1827. \nThis “Portrait of a Lady” (possibly of Sra Da Maria Isidra \nPalmero y Verzosa de Lizarraga in her 50s?) from the 1850s \nis attributed to Juan Arceo/Juan Arzeo and comes from the \nsame Azcarraga estate in Madrid and Valencia, Espana.<br /><br />Arceo was born in 1795 in Manila during the closing years of \nthe eighteenth century (however, the surname Arceo points \nto Pampanga, where many have carried it for centuries, \neven before the Claveria decree of 1849 which required \nFilipinos to finally carry surnames; Pampanga is not far from \nManila through the old riverine route, it is only 45 minutes \nby boat from the mouth of the Rio Pasig). He resided in \nSan Fernando de Dilao (now Paco, Manila), then a part of \nTondo. He was already 26 years old when the Academia de \nDibujo y Pintura was established by the 25 year–old Damian \nDomingo y Gabor (1796–1834) supported by the Real \nSociedad Economica Filipina de los Amigos del Pais in 1821. \nManila was officially opened to international trade in 1835 \nwhen he was 40 years old (Cebu in 1860, Sual, Iloilo, and \nZamboanga in 1855, Legazpi and Tacloban in 1873; however, \nforeigners --- specially the Chinese, Indians, Arabs, British, \nand Americans --- had been trading continuously because \nthe archipelago was essentially porous and anti–foreigner \nlaws toothless); the government of SM La Reina Regente \nMaria Cristina de Borbon had abolished the bankrupt Real \nCompania de Filipinas in 1834; in 1785, SM El Rey Carlos \nIII had granted the Real Compania de Filipinas (a spinoff \nfrom the erstwhile Compania de Caracas) founded by his \ncrony, the colorful Spanish–French Basque Conde Francisco \nde Cabarrus y Lalanne (1752–1810) the monopoly on the \nexport and import trade of indigo, coffee, sugar, spices, and \ncotton in Filipinas and adjacent colonies; it was relatively \nshortlived as its profitable operations had dwindled by 1800.<br /><br />Arceo passed away in 1865 during the last years of the old \norder, before SM La Reina Isabel II was deposed in 1868, \njust before real intellectual and material modernity came to \nFilipinas with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and \nonly seven years before the watershed Cavite Mutiny of \n1872, which changed the history of Filipinas forever. <br /><br />Juan Arceo lived at a time of great transition when Las \nIslas Filipinas was emerging from the shackles of Spanish \ncolonialism and joining the international community and \nit set the stage for the length and breadth of his splendid \nartistic oeuvre.<br /><br />Juan Arceo was the maternal uncle of another notable early \nFilipino painter, Antonio Malantic y Arceo of Tondo, Manila \n(1820–85), who undoubtedly learned the rudiments of art \nat his talented uncle’s atelier. There are four signed works \nof Malantic in existence: “La Divina Pastora” 1855; “Don \nNarciso Padilla y nieto Felix Resurreccion–Hidalgo” 1859; \n“Srta Soledad Francia y Fernandez” 1870; “Srta Inocencia \nFrancia y Fernandez” 1870. Many were destroyed during \nWorld War II, as the portraits of Don Hilario Jose Claudio \nFrancia, his wife Dona Teresa Fernandez, son Prudencio \nFrancia y Fernandez, and other Lavadia, Fabella, Fernandez \nrelatives in Pagsanjan, Laguna. And countless others in the \n“arrabales” (districts) of Tondo, Binondo, Santa Cruz, (Calle \nSan Sebastian), and Quiapo, in Manila. However, more \nforgotten works by Malantic are emerging from private \ncollections, specially in Spain. Owing to better exposure \nand reference materials from Europe (the Suez Canal \nmade cultural exchanges expedient), it turned out that \nMalantic’s post–1870 portraits were already in the current \nEuropean Romantic style and comparable to those of far \nyounger artists Juan Luna y Novicio (1857–1899) and Felix \nResurreccion–Hidalgo y Padilla (1855 –1913), something \nwhich was hardly available during the far older generation of \nJuan Arceo (1795–1865) and Damian Domingo (1796–1834). 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