December 5, 2010 at 10:07 am (1900s Philippines, 19th century Filipino Art, Architecture, Design and Decoration, Manila Houses, The Global Crowd, The Ilonggos, The Manilenos, The Negrenses, The Past)
There are many rich, even superrich, Filipinos. But only a few of them have style, and even fewer still have the high style which compare to their peers in New York, Paris, and London.
Architect Leandro “Lindy” Locsin and his heiress wife Cecilia “Cecile” Araneta Yulo along with their friends personified Filipino high style.
Lindy and Cecile kept a close circle of friends — Jimmy and Maribel Ongpin, Ting and Baby Paterno, and Manolo and Rose Agustines.
December 5, 2010 at 10:06 am (1900s Philippines, 19th century Filipino Art, Architecture, Design and Decoration, Filipino Art, Manila Houses, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Past)
by Augusto M R Gonzalez III (Toto Gonzalez)
He already had good taste even as a child, which wasn’t surprising considering that his family lived in the most beautiful residence during prewar along aristocratic Calle R. Hidalgo. His mother, Dona Carmen Zaragoza y Roxas de Araneta, although known for her Roman Catholic piety and simplicity, was also a woman of high style who was concerned about her dresses and her beautiful home.
Calle R Hidalgo had been the preserve of the Manila Rich since the 1850s, when they established their grand city villas with gardens beside the clean waterways there, something which they simply could not do in the old, smelly “arrabales”/districts of Intramuros, Binondo, San Nicolas, Santa Cruz, and Tondo. On Calle San Sebastian, later Calle R Hidalgo, the capital’s rich could live suitably, in high European style. There lived the Tuasons, very rich with their royal land grants since 1764, and their allied families, Legardas, Prietos, and Valdeses. The business-minded Roxases and their allied families Tuasons, Zaragozas, Aranetas, Infantes, and Preyslers. The highly educated and cultured Paternos, rich since 1800 and very rich since the 1860s and their cousins the entrepreneurial Zamoras and the intelligent Ocampos. There were the real estate-rich Padillas, the artistic but businesslike Nakpils, and the affluent Pampanga hacenderos the Escalers.
In the 1880s rose the splendid riverside community beside the “Palacio de Malacanan” in the adjacent San Miguel district. Great mansions rose along that stretch of the Pasig river amid lush tropical gardens with opulent interiors that rivaled those in European estates. But the pattern of elegant living was still taken from nearby Calle R Hidalgo.
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March 2017. The Saturday afternoon before I was giving the talk “Luis Ma Araneta: The Connoisseur’s Delight In Celebrations” as part of the “LMA 100” series, Irene graciously invited me over for the afternoon to her home — the house that Arch Luis Ma Araneta designed for himself — to tie up the last remaining loose ends.
It was a privilege and a pleasure to be the only guest of the chatelaine in that elegant house. I had been there during parties and meetings but never alone. Devoid of the comings and goings of guests and the inevitably loud chatter of highly social gatherings, one could still perceive the essence of the Filipino arts and antiques legend that was Don Luis Ma Araneta. Every stone and every piece of wood around still spoke of the man.
I alighted at the porte-cochere and walked up the entrance walkway of big “piedra china” blocks to the open front door. Inside the tall entrance hall lit by 2 antique giltwood chandeliers (a “compuesto”/composition of antique Filipino “andas” and “carroza” parts) was a winding staircase with brass balusters which led to a corridor that opened left to the living room and right to the dining room.
Irene was standing in the living room, clad in blue, chic and relaxed as always, when I reached the top of the staircase. We bussed each other lightly and my eyes began to wander again to all the beautiful and important paintings and antique furniture in the commodious room…
December 5, 2010 at 10:04 am (1900s Philippines, Architecture, Design and Decoration, Manila Houses, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Novo Ecijanos, The Past)
If the adage “Money can buy everything” is true then Arturo de Santos certainly bought everything…
December 5, 2010 at 10:02 am (1900s Philippines, Manila Houses, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Past)
At the time when family background counted for everything in American colonial Manila society, Conching Chuidian Sunico had everything it took to dominate the social scene.
November 2, 2010 at 10:02 pm (1800s Filipinas, 1900s Philippines, Angst, Arnedo de Sulipan, Brother Andrew F.S.C. of De La Salle, Comedy Relief, Domestic Travels, Family Traditions, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Humor, Pampanga Cuisine, Pampanga Traditions, Personal, Random memories, Religious Traditions, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos, The Past, Tristesse)
Probably because of all the shit that had happened since, I no longer remember why we were there at the Gonzalez mausoleum at the Apalit Catholic cemetery, just the two of us, my uncle Brother Andrew and I, one sunny, breezy afternoon sometime in the early 2000s… [ The venerable Brother Andrew Benjamin Gonzalez, F.S.C., 1940 – 2006, of the De La Salle / Brothers of the Christian Schools, longtime president of the DLSU De La Salle University in Manila ]
“You can just put my ashes [ half ] anywhere here… when the time comes.” Brother Andrew declared, a detectable gulp in his voice, as he surveyed the extension to the right of the old mausoleum, where the younger members of the family, his generation, were buried. “The other half will have to be with the Brothers in Lipa.”
“Well, why not just be interred wholly in Lipa? Why be ‘chop-chop’ like a pig?” I asked.
“Because none of you will visit me there, damn it!” he scoffed.
I laughed. “Of course we won’t, it’s too far! Besides, how would you know, you’d be dead, six feet under the ground, or six feet over, whichever…”
“I know!” he snapped with finality.
“Well, which half goes here and which half goes to the Brothers? From your head to your tummy here, and from your ass to your feet to the Brothers? Or the other way around?” I asked jokingly.
“It doesn’t matter. Some here, some there… Just do it, please!” he requested, his eyes wide with sarcasm and scorn for his wisecracking nephew.
“OK! Whatever turns you on, Brother.” I shrugged.
“OK. Where do we go to eat now? I had a lousy lunch! I’m hungry!” and off he stomped back to the car.
And with that query, we left the Gonzalez mausoleum at the Apalit Catholic cemetery.
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Some five years later in January 2006, Brother Andrew passed away of severe diabetic complications. That afternoon, my lawyer brother, his Korean wife, and I were enjoying the delights of the 168 mall in Divisoria for the first time. All those cheap and cheerful goods!!! At 4:30 p.m., my brother received a text message that Brother Andrew was finally dying at the De La Salle University hospital in Cavite. We immediately decided to return home to get organized. As we were driving along Quezon avenue in front of the Santo Domingo church at around 5:30 p.m., we received another text message that he had already passed away. I sighed, then continued looking at all the nice fake watches I had bought which I forthwith decided I simply couldn’t wear and would have to give away to our male employees… The guy’s dead anyway, what could we do about it?!
By that time, he had messed up family matters so badly — with not a little help from youknowwho, youknowwhotoo, and youknowwhoelse — that some of us, including yours truly, had simply eradicated him from our lives. Probably because of divine intervention, I managed to visit the dying man a few times in the hospital and actually be cordial, as if nothing bad had happened at all, which the poor man happily interpreted as “reconciliation” [ which it really wasn’t, it would take a longer time, but what do you do with a dying man? ]. We were still able to talk about some important things, but not all, before he finally “kicked the bucket.”
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It’s 2010 and I’m a very different person, sometimes unrecognizable even to myself. Gone are the kindness, innocence, generosity of soul that everyone who had known me in childhood could attest. Essentially. Then I finally realized, contrary to what I had been taught and had believed in all my life, that goodness has no place in this world where one must kill, in all ways, to survive. The danger is that the difference lies deep inside: the cynicism, sarcasm, vengefulness, darkness of the soul… although visible are the tired eyes, the sagging cheeks, the droopy smile, the weatherbeaten look of it all. I think evil of everyone, bolstered by the fact that I’m usually proven right as time passes. I prefer the Stepmother to Cinderella, Maleficent to the Three Good Fairies, Odile to Odette, Tosca to Violetta. They’re more fun!!!
What’s the point of visiting the dead family members during All Souls’ Day anyway??? Why all the pretenses??? Why visit the dead when the living detest and even loathe each other? What family? Are you to be considered family when you’re only all too willing to destroy the entire superstructure just to feed your sense of self-entitlement, simply because you feel outdone and disenfranchised by so-and-so, because you’re named so-and-so, the supposed favorite of so-and-so? What legacies? Are misunderstandings, arguments, quarrels, and protracted wars among family members considered legacies??? We might as well be all dead if that’s the case!!!
Last week, my sister made arrangements for the Apalit parish priest to say an anticipated All Souls’ Day mass at the Gonzalez mausoleum at the Catholic cemetery; she was the only one who attended. A few days later, my eldest brother, still hip and groovy from the non-trad 1970s, called my younger brother so that they and their families could make the trip to the mausoleum at the cemetery. What for??? Did they ever care for those traditions when they were still there? Why make a show of it now, now that it’s gone, for good??? What for??? As for me, I told them pointedly that since we could no longer have the traditional Capampangan breakfast at the old house in Sulipan / Capalangan, the least they could do would be to cart me off to the Pen, the Shang, or the Sofitel Plaza for breakfast, brunch, or lunch. “Antonio’s” Tagaytay would be nice. Other than that, please do not bother me with your inanities, I told them.
SHIT. Sartre would agree.
October 28, 2010 at 12:17 pm (1800s Filipinas, 1900s Philippines, 19th century Filipino Art, Current Events, Filipino Art, Random memories, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Past)
The magnificent “Lumina Pandit” exhibition at the UST University of Santo Tomas Miguel de Benavides Central Library.
July 23, 2010 at 3:15 pm (1900s Philippines, 2000s Philippines, Filipino Art, Manila Houses, Random memories, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Past)
We stood before a big white canvas with a messy black splotch in the middle… we were all awed before it because it had been purchased for an unspeakable sum. Actually, everything in that house was purchased for unspeakable sums so it was just another purchase during a leisurely afternoon. The more august among us murmured expressions of comprehension, appreciation, and delight. Needless to say, I wasn’t one of them. I wanted to go down and back to the living room where there was more foie gras and more Dom Perignon served by the waiters and big bags of potato chips secreted inside the magnificent Batangas I altar table.
“I have never pretended to be an art connoisseur and I’m certainly not going to start now… So what’s this all about???” I looked up and down and left and right and just couldn’t “get it.”
The rest of the company, who were good friends of mine anyway, stared incredulously at me and broke out in guffaws and giggles…
In truly “top-out-of-sight” Manila — the Manila of the Roxas-de Ayala-Zobel-Soriano, the Tuason-Legarda-Prieto-Valdes, the Roxas-Zaragoza-Araneta-O, the Ortigas, the Aboitiz, and now of course the monosyllabic Chinoy ultrarich the Sy, Tan, Go, Tiu, Que Pe, et. al. — a painting by their “primo” Fernando Zobel in one’s home, usually in the living room, is a sign of one’s belonging in that special world. You see, you just cannot walk into a Manila art gallery and buy a Fernando Zobel. Not only will you need the $$$ megabucks, you will need the stratospheric social connections to pull it off. If you bought one and didn’t need either, then you bought a fake, darling.
July 23, 2010 at 3:13 pm (1900s Philippines, Family Traditions, Filipino Art, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Manila Houses, Random memories, The Batanguenos, The Bicolanos, The Bulaquenos, The Cagayanons, The Cavitenos, The Cebuanos, The Davaoenos, The Global Crowd, The Ilocanos, The Ilonggos, The Laguna Tagalogs, The Leytenos, The Manilenos, The Negrenses, The Novo Ecijanos, The Pampanguenos, The Pangasinenses, The Past, The Samarenos, The Tarlaquenos, The Tayabenses / Quezonians)
What a laugh… I grew up in my Lola Charing’s house which was proudly hung with oil portraits by THE Fernando Cueto Amorsolo. Unfortunately, all of them, save for Lolo Augusto’s posthumous one from 1947, were from the 1950s, a period decried by serious collectors and scholars for mediocre works because of his deteriorating eyesight. The one of Tito Willy looked specially sad; Amorsolo had explained to Lola Charing that he was mimicking the style of Rembrandt. It looked like Rembrandt on downers. In any case, they were perfect for Disneyland’s “Haunted Mansion” ride. Fearing that we grandchildren would neglect and eventually sell them, my uncle Brother Andrew donated the whole spooky lot to the various art gallery units of the DLSU De La Salle University. They must be haunted by now.
So when I found myself in the houses of family friends with magnificent, blindingly lit Amorsolo genre paintings, I was surprised by how sunny and happy they looked, so unlike ours.
July 23, 2010 at 3:12 pm (1800s Filipinas, 1900s Philippines, 19th century Filipino Art, Design and Decoration, Filipino Art, Random memories, The Manilenos, The Past)
Long ago in mid-1987, Malolos patrician, historian, and nationwide heritage advocate Basilidez “Dez” Bautista led our group through a memorable tour of his hometown Malolos, Bulacan and environs.
He brought us to the famous prewar Art Deco mansion of the famous ophthalmologist LS. Apart from the stunning ceiling painting by the young Fernando Amorsolo, and the goldfishes in the guest bathroom walls also by Amorsolo, what riveted my attention was the charming painting “Kundiman” by Fabian de la Rosa, an elegant scene of an afternoon musicale at home where the doctor himself, dressed in a light suit, was depicted seated in the corner. For me, it was the soul of that house, more than the Amorsolo ceiling opus.
Several years later, in a crazy turn of events, I was admiring, albeit sadly, the very same “Kundiman” by Fabian de la Rosa in the entrance hall, hung with wallfuls of beautiful prewar Fernando Amorsolos, of an ubercollector friend’s Forbes Park house, where it hung by itself on a small section of wall beside the entrance to the dining room. I wanted to weep at seeing an old friend displaced from one’s original home. For me, it was totally forlorn and out of context there — a masterpiece among hundreds of other masterpieces in the Chinoy Croesus’ palace — nowhere as beautiful, shining like a star, as it had been in its original and intended location — the airy and commodious “sala” of the Art Deco doctor’s mansion in Pariancillo, Malolos, Bulacan.
Over dinner, close friends related, in hush-hush tones, the story of the painting’s acquisition. I knew the doctor’s family was rich and didn’t need the money the painting had generated [ the broker’s margin notwithstanding ]. My friends related that the Fernando Amorsolo ceiling was badly deteriorated and required immediate restoration. The doctor’s family, based in Ayala Alabang, was financially solid and could well afford it. The well-known art restorer from Santa Ana, Manila was summoned and he declared that he could save it. However, apart from the enormous restoration fee, he required something else from the family: he would only restore it if the family agreed to sell the “Kundiman” painting by Fabian de la Rosa to him. It was their Scylla and Charybdis: it was one or the other. The doctor’s family, desperate to save what they thought was their greatest treasure — the Amorsolo ceiling — agreed. The restorer forthwith sold it to the Chinoy Croesus. Well, we all know what happened to the art restorer after that. End of story.
A few years ago, I came across another superb Fabian de la Rosa, a large painting of “Planting Rice” which traced its provenance to the estate of the Spanish mestizo patriarch of a rich shipping family. Magnificent and mesmerizing. I could not get enough of it the whole evening. Because the heirs are still affluent and very discreet, the painting and the rest of the distinguished collection — including a large Fernando Amorsolo, a large Jorge Pineda, a unique pair of exquisite oil landscapes on “madre perla” shells by the national hero Jose Rizal, among other splendors — have not been seen by art scholars and connoisseurs for decades and will likely remain so. That is the reason why it has not landed in the Chinoy Croesus’ palace.
July 23, 2010 at 3:12 pm (1800s Filipinas, 1900s Philippines, 19th century Filipino Art, Design and Decoration, Filipino Art, Manila Houses, Random memories, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Pangasinenses, The Past)
“Hidalgo is all light, color, harmony, feeling, limpidness like the Philippines in her calm moonlit nights, in her serene days with her horizons inviting contemplation…”
Dr. Jose P. Rizal during the toast at the dinner in honor of of the prizewinning artists Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo on 25 June 1884 at the “Cafe Ingles.”
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Refinement. The one characteristic of the paintings of Felix Resurrecion Hidalgo y Padilla.
“The only real “La Banca’!!! ” Teyet declared smugly as we stood, mesmerized as always during every visit, by the masterpiece in his apartment’s entrance hall.
So it was quite a surprise when we browsed through Teyet’s former BFF “best friend forever” and now archnemesis couturier Pitoy Moreno’s book “Kasalan” [ “Wedding” ] — derided as “Kasalanan” [ “Sin” ] by Teyet — and saw the “La Banca” painting by Hidalgo, another one, this time from the collection of industrialist Manuel Ag*stines and his patrician wife Ros*rito Legarda-Prieto C*ro.
For sure, that was another real “La Banca.”
Another beautiful, relatively accessible Hidalgo painting is “La Inocencia” still in its original Filipino Art Nouveau frame from the collection of Dr. Alejandro Legarda. It still hangs in the living room of his house.
A real stunner, an epic work, is the mural “The Assassination of Governor Bustamante” in the Leandro and Cecilia Locsin collection. I first saw it during the Luna-Hidalgo retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila in the late 1980s. With the painter’s characteristic finesse, it didn’t even look like a violent assassination. It looked like the Dominican friars were just parading around with banners or something…
Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo y Padilla was born in 1855 to the rich, propertied Padilla family of Binondo, Manila originally from 1700s Lingayen, Pangasinan. For starters, he was painted at the age of four in 1859 [ or age of six in 1859 if born in 1853; historians have varied dates 😛 ] with his maternal grandfather Narciso Padilla by the Tondo maestro Antonio Malantic. Narciso Padilla was a rich lawyer and merchant with several businesses and many commercial real estate properties in Manila and surrounding “arrabales” districts. Narciso’s daughter, Barbara “Baritay” Padilla de Resurreccion Hidalgo, Felix’s mother, inherited many valuable properties from him, among them several big warehouses in the Divisoria entrepot in Tondo which lined the Pasig river. The affluent Padilla family had [ and still has ] a long history distinguished by high professional achievement, wealth, conservatism, and prudence. The Padilla descendants recall that, with characteristic frugality, their forebears had transferred the “bahay na bato” ancestral house in Lingayen, Pangasinan beam by beam and brick by brick to Calle General Solano in posh San Miguel district, Manila in the late 1800s. Frugality notwithstanding, the transfer of whole houses “in toto” was not an unusual practice during the Spanish colonial era.
remembrance of things awry 