PROPERTY FORMERLY IN THE MR. AND MRS. ROMEO JORGE COLLECTION

The Romeo Jorge Baliuag
Altar Comoda
Last Quarter of the 19th-Century
Narra, Kamagong and Bone
H: 45 1/2” x L: 58 1/4” x W: 24 1/2”
(116 cm x 148 cm x 62 cm)

Provenance:
Baliuag, Bulacan

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