This beautiful painting is one of the lesser known works of the Realist Filipino painter of the late 19th century, Juan Luna. The work is entitled Las Damas Romanas, painted by Luna in 1887 in Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid.
It gives us an idea of how Luna loved to paint scenes from Ancient Rome, given that he had another greater work depicting a Roman scene of the Coliseum entitled Spoliarium.
What is most curious about this painting was how it reappeared before 2008 after years of being lost. Apparently a French dealer bought it from an estate sale outside of Paris, unaware of its value. It was auctioned again and today it costs around HK$4,700,000.
Filipino paintings have its own unique beauty. Even if Luna began his works in a very European perspective (he was not that of a nationalist compared to his brother, Antonio), Juan Luna and Felix Hidalgo paved the way for other Filipino artists to take the brush and start painting scenes from a Filipino point of view. And with that, the best for me was Fernando Amorsolo.
now if I just have the money and print Filipino Masterpieces on a shirt and sell them. ;) that could really be a cooooool shirt
The Boxer Codex, dated 1595, is a book depicting early Filipinos in the 16th century, as they came in contact with the Spaniards. Notice the gold ornaments that Filipinos wore then (the illustration above pertains to the Tagalog Maginoo class.) Even Pigafetta and de Legazpi would write that gold was common place in the Philippines during this time. The codex was said to have been made for the son of Gomez Perez Dasmarinas, Luis Perez Dasmarinas. Almost three centuries later, it fell into the hands of Prof. Charles Boxer of the Indiana University, to whom the manuscript was eventually named. Many have said that it was with exaggeration that these illustrations were made, not until the discovery of the Surigao Treasure in 1981, which proves that indeed we had gold before the arrival of the conquistadors. Some of the pieces can be found in the Ayala Museum, and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
cool!
