Dalagang Pilipina
signed and dated 1923 (lower right)
watercolor on paper
8" x 6 1/2" (20 cm x 17 cm)

PROVENANCEAcquired directly from the Artist by the current owner’s greatgrandmotherwhile she lived in Manila during the first quarterof the 20th century; And thence by descent to the present owner.


An Intriguing Portrait of a Dalagang Filipina by L I S A G U E R R E RO N A K P I L Fabian de la Rosa came from a family of distinguished artists. His uncle, Simon Flores y de la Rosa, was one of Manila’s leading portraitists; his aunt, also a painter, was one of his teachers. His nephew, who he mentored, was Fernando Amorsolo, widely recognized as the inventor of the Philippine sunlit landscape. He was one of the fabled characters that inhabited the streets and salons of turn-of-the-century Manila, in that turbulent period between the sunset of the Spanish empire and the dawn of the American century. De la Rosa was accepted as a student at the Manila Academia in Intramuros. Orphaned, however, at age 16, he would have to drop out in his third year. De la Rosa soon took his talent for painting to the streets, selling small works to tourists for fifty centavos each. He would also eke out a living at the famous Sala de Armas fencing school established by the Luna brothers. He was apparently talented enough to be taken on as an instructor; his students included a young Mabini, still able-bodied. Between 1893 and 1897, de la Rosa would begin to make a name for himself, alongside his contemporaries Jorge Pineda and Ramon Peralta. He would become successful enough to be impatient and, in 1898, began lobbying for the re-installation of the annual Madrid art scholarships. His chances would be swept away in the maelstrom of the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine-American War that followed soon after. Nevertheless, he would continue to build a clientele of the wealthy who would come to his studio to be immortalized in portraits. Significantly, he would join Resurreccion Hidalgo and Juan Luna at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, an important milestone in America’s cultural conquest. His work Planting Rice—which depicted the peace and serenity of the United States’ new colony, the Philippines—took home the gold, putting him shoulder to shoulder with the country’s most famous painters. He would prove himself their capable heir in the art of academic painting. Four years after this painting was created, he would be named the head of the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts in 1927. This watercolor at hand conveys a flash of insight in this particular dalaga’s character : It is both knowing and also lost in thought; her unsmiling, sidelong expression completely atypical of the soft accommodating features of the country lass that would be immortalized by both Fabian and his increasingly famous nephew Fernando Amorsolo. Her loose peasant blouse and head scarf are outlined loosely, with greater detail and attention paid to her wholly original features.