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PROPERTY FORMERLY IN THE ROMEO JORGE COLLECTION San Miguel Arcangel 17th century Binondo, Manila ivory, silver, and gold ivory santo: H: 19" (48 cm) L: 3 1/2" (9 cm) W: 13" (33 cm) sword: 18k gold, 36 grams virina: H: 35" (89 cm) L: 15" (38 cm) W: 23" (58 cm) silver base: H: 4 3/4" (12 cm) L: 8" (20 cm) W: 11 1/2" (29 cm) PROVENANCE Private collection, Manila WRITE UP: At the Romeo and Nini Jorge residence in La Vista during the 1980s–90s, in a splendid assemblage of important Old Master art, antique Filipino furniture, and exquisite Filipino ivory and silver, and where soignee receptions were held featuring the top performance artists of the day, this magnificent solid ivory Arcangel took pride of place in the elegant living room atop an important Baliuag comoda. It was the glory of the famous Romeo Jorge art and antiques collection. Saint Michael the Archangel is depicted as a young man dressed as a Roman soldier brandishing a golden sword and stepping over the Devil who is half–human and half– snake, half–fish, or half–dragon (he actually looks like a mythical “merman”). His features are distinctly Oriental with arched eyebrows, heavily–lidded eyes, a fine nose, and rosebud lips, although efforts were made to ensure large eyes. The expression is stoic and serious, but curiously detached. His hair is articulated with great baroque curls. He is dressed as a classical Roman soldier; his cape slung over his left shoulder. The wings are carved and painted gold to simulate eagle wings. He wears midcalf–length boots. The image stands on an ornate, neoclassical base of chased and repousseed silvergilt. The facial features and the overall style of this image has many similarities with the Hispano–Filipino marfiles --- large solid ivory images of the Cristo Expirante and the Virgen Maria --- at the Cathedral of The Glory of The Romeo Jorge Collection by AUGUSTO MARCELINO REYES GONZALEZ III Sevilla and the Museo Oriental in Valladolid, Spain. These large Hispano–Filipino religious marfiles of an indeterminate European air, largely from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, were crafted by Sangley Chinese carvers and their indio assistants in Binondo, Manila; apparently, the other genre of large religious marfiles that hewed closer to classical Chinese models were crafted in southern China, also for the Spanish market. This solid ivory image of San Miguel Arcangel is often compared to the famous solid ivory image of the same saint at the San Agustin Museum in Intramuros. The Mr Jorge image is far older than the one at San Agustin because Mr Jorge’s is baroque from the seventeenth century and San Agustin’s renowned image is neoclassical from the late eighteenth century at the earliest. The story of such early, large Filipino–Spanish colonial ivory images is inextricably intertwined with the two hundred fifty year–long Galleon Trade between Acapulco and Manila which lasted from 1565–1824. The trip from Acapulco to Manila brought missionaries, Spanish officials, soldiers, merchants, adventurers, religious images both painted and carved (the famous images of “Nuestra Senora de la Paz y Buenviaje” of Antipolo, the “Nuestra Senora de la Salud” of Recoletos de Intramuros, the “Jesus Nazareno” of Recoletos de Intramuros, the “Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno” of Quiapo, and several others), and most importantly the “situado” royal subsidy of silver coins to financially sustain the colony of Las Islas Filipinas (it wasn’t until the establishment of the immensely profitable “El Monopolio de Tabacos”/ Tobacco Monopoly by Capitan General (Governor–General) Jose Basco y Vargas in 1782 that Las Islas Filipinas could begin to sustain itself economically; the “situado” from the Virreinato de Nueva Espana or Mexico was finally abolished in 1804). The “situado” was accumulated from taxes levied on the luxurious merchandise of the galleons in Acapulco supplemented by contributions from the royal safes of the “Virreinato de Nueva Espana”/Viceroyalty of Mexico. The return trip from Manila to Acapulco brought the splendors of the Orient --- Chinese silks, Indian cottons, Asian spices, gold, precious gems, ivory, etc. From Acapulco, the coveted goods were sent to Cadiz in Madre Espana and to the principal ports of the Spanish empire. An observer wrote of the bustling international trade of Manila in 1633: “Manila cannot be compared to any other emporium of our monarchy, for it is the center towards which flow the riches of the Orient and the Occident, the silver of Peru and New Spain, the pearls and precious stones of India, the diamonds of Narsinga and Goa, rubies, sapphires, and topaz, and the cinnamon of Ceylon, the pepper of Sumatra and Java, the cloves, nutmeg and other spices of the Moluccas and Banda; fine Persian silk; wool and carpets of Ormuz and Malabar, rich draperies and blankets of Bengala, balm and ivory of Abada and Cambodia, perfumes…; and of continental China, uncut silk of all kinds, woven velvet and damasks, taffetas and fabrics of all kinds of texture, design, and color; cloths and cotton blankets, gold–plated articles; embroideries and porcelains and other rich articles of great value and esteem; from Japan, amber and colored silks, desks, crates and tables of preciously lacquered and curiously decorated wood, and very good silver receptacles.” The Chinese who brought the ivory tusks to Manila were an industrious, pioneering, enterprising, and innovative lot who supplied every imaginable need and want of the natives and later on, after 1565, the Spanish colonizers. Capitan–General Guido de Lavezares wrote SM El Rey Felipe Segundo (HM King Philip II) in 1574: “The Chinese continue to increase their trade every year and they provide us many articles like sugar, wheat flour, animal fat, grapes, pears and oranges, silks, select porcelain, iron and other products that we needed in these lands before they came.” Capitan– General de Lavezares perhaps did not know that Chinese traders had been coming to Las Islas Filipinas to trade since time immemorial and that they knew the islands and the inhabitants well (for example, the Chinese were documented as sourcing hardwood lumber from these islands as far back as the T’ang dynasty 618– 907 AD); it was actually the Spanish who were the newcomers to this part of the world. The Chinese goods were transported from the major ports of Canton (currently Guangzhou city) or Amoy (currently Xiamen city) in the southern coast as well as the smaller ports. The distance to Manila averaged from between 650– 700 miles (1,046.1–1,126.5 km). Capitan–General Manuel de Leon (1669–76) sent a special mission to China to encourage trade with the Spanish in the Las Islas Filipinas colony. Afterwards, the Chinese merchants traveled to Manila from very distant places like Ning–Po (currently Ningbo city in Zhejiang) and the north of Che–Kiang province (currently Zhejiang, with Shanghai city and Jiangsu province to the north), which is Shanghai city and Jiangsu province. Every year by 1650, twenty to sixty Chinese junks would sail for Las Islas Filipinas; some were so large they could hold some two hundred to four hundred men. In 1574, six came; in 1580, from forty to fifty. By 1600, the average number was thirty to forty every year. The numbers hardly varied in the following years. Every season of sailing and selling was determined by the internal situations in China, possibilities of lucrative transactions in Manila, the safety of crossing the South Sea, and the perennial danger of pirates. We have an idea of how these religious ivory images were crafted by referring to the history of the “de vestir” image of “Nuestra Senora del Santisimo Rosario” /“La Naval de Manila” of the Dominicans, the oldest documented Marian ivory image in the Philippines, presented to the Orden de Predicadores as a gift from Capitan–General (Governor– General) Luis Perez de Dasmarinas in 1593, in memory of his deceased/assassinated father Capitan–General Gomez Perez de Dasmarinas. Capitan–General Luis Perez de Dasmarinas assigned his deputy Capitan Hernando de los Rios Coronel to oversee a Sangley Chinese master sculptor at the Parian (the original Sangley ghetto just outside Intramuros to the northeast --- currently the area of Liwasang Bonifacio, Manila Metropolitan Theater, Arroceros Forest Park; Binondo across the Rio Pasig was established in 1594 by Capitan–General Luis Perez de Dasmarinas) in creating the nearly life–sized ivory images of the Virgen Maria and Nino Jesus, and to ensure that they would not look Chinese or Oriental, as was inevitably the case with religious sculpture created by the Sangleys. Capitan de los Rios Coronel only succeeded to a point. The resulting images predictably looked more Oriental than European --- high arched eyebrows, heavy lidded almond eyes, plump cheeks, fine noses, rose bud mouths --- but nonetheless were very beautiful; the Virgen Maria took on the facial configuration of the Chinese goddess of mercy, Guanyin, along with the characteristic cheeks and jawline. The resulting images of the Virgen Maria and Nino Jesus were a tantalizing mix of East and West, presaging by centuries the global human features so desirable today.