PROPERTY FORMERLY IN THE ROMEO JORGE COLLECTION
An Ornate Grooved Marble-Top Table
ca. 1885
white marble-top from Carrara, Italy or southern China
height: 28 3/4" (73 cm) diameter: 38" (97 cm)


PROVENANCE: Private collection, Pagsanjan/Santa Cruz, Laguna



This singular, exuberant round center table with highly articulated Victorian–style carving features a marbletop with three grooves from Carrara, Italy or southern China. The marble-top is supported by an unusual “cenefa” or round frame artistically carved with pelmets and swags with scalloped edgings. Owing to the delicacy and fragility of the carved cenefa, the standard support of two bars flanking the connecting panel to the base was increased by the maker with a crosswise support of two additional bars. The ornate baluster base has swirling upright acanthus leaves and a plate of beadwork underneath. The extravagant feet are a melange of articulated C-scrolls, unfurling bulbous floral and foliar forms terminating in uncharacteristically discreet/ underplayed ball-and-claw feet. This table is a masterpiece of a master carver. This extravagantly carved marble-top center table from around 1885 came from Pagsanjan (the second provincial capital in 1688 after the original Bai’) and Santa Cruz towns (the third capital after 1858) in Laguna, which along with Chinese–dominated Binan town were the centers of trade in the lakeshore province. It is certainly a splendid production of a master carver trained at the Paete School established in the early 1880s by Gobernador Francisco de Yriarte y Menendez, a Spanish gentleman of taste and style, a well– known aesthete who sought to elevate the artistry and quality of the traditional carved wooden products of Paete town and environs. His palatial “bahay–na–bato” in Santa Cruz became a famous showcase of magnificent Paete woodworks, with eager visitors coming from all over to see it all. Gobernador de Yriarte was remarkably successful in his quest for the recognition of Paete as an upmarket source of superior woodcarving, and the woodworkers there as well as the other towns of Laguna won many awards in ensuing national and international competitions. During the second half of the nineteenth century (1850 – 99), every big “bahay-na-bato” in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao had 2 round marble-top tables with tripod bases which reinforced the high social status of the homeowners, be they hacenderos (plantation owners), merchants, or both --- the standard baluster bases were of reeded urns or upright acanthus leaves and the feet were of ball-andclaw or alternating C-scrolls. The one with a plain molded marble-top was placed in the center of the “caida”/entrance hall which was the family living room. The much more expensive one with multiple grooves on the sides of the marble-top --- the more grooves, the more expensive, therefore the richer the owner (according to Martin I Tinio) --- was placed in the center of the “sala”/living room which was the formal reception room for important guests and occasions. The biggest and grandest versions known of these grooved marble-top center tables are in the Sy–Quia mansion museum/Gregorio Sy–Quia y Encarnacion–Estefania Angco estate in Vigan, Ilocos Sur (reeded urn-shaped baluster base, ball and claw feet, circa 1860); the Aniceto Lacson y Ledesma–Rosario Araneta y Cabunsol estate in Talisay, Negros Occidental (reeded urn-shaped baluster base, ball and claw feet, circa 1880); the Museo De La Salle, DLSU–D De La Salle University–Dasmarinas, Dasmarinas, Cavite (baluster base of stylized round acanthus leaves, feet of alternating C–scrolls, Ex Coll: Jose Ma Ricardo Abad Panlilio, Angeles–Gutierrez David estate, Bacolor, Pampanga, circa 1880); the Casa Manila house museum, Plaza San Luis, Intramuros (baluster base of upright acanthus leaves, feet of alternating C–scrolls, Ex Coll: Paterno–Devera Ignacio estate, General Solano street, San Miguel, Manila, circa 1870); and in the Paulino and Hetty Que collection (reeded urn-shaped baluster base, ball and claw feet, circa 1860), Forbes Park, Makati city. (Augusto Marcelino Reyes Gonzalez III)