Romanas leads Christie’s Hong Kong fall sale

Christie’s, the world’s leading art business and the leading auction house in Asia, announced that “Las Damas Romanas” (Roman Maidens) by Juan Luna y Novicio (1857–1899) will be among the leading highlights in its upcoming fall sale on November 30. "Las Damas Romanas" (estimated to be worth US$1,025,600–US$1,282,000) is one of the truly iconic Roman scenes from Juan Luna, an artist who stands as one of the most important Filipino painters of the colonial period for the reformist stance and the role he played in highlighting the plight of the Philippine colony to the Spaniards.

This extraordinary work was, until only recently, presumed lost, as its whereabouts were unknown over the century since it was painted. Its reappearance on the market now makes it one of only a small number of drawings, watercolors and oils by Luna that have surfaced in the past quarter of a century.

Documentation on the work has been scant, having only been noted in the 1957 biography of Luna by Carlos E. Da Silva and appearing as a faded black and white photograph from the file of the pre-war art dealer and historian Alfonso T. Ongpin, reproduced by Santiago Pilar in Juan Luna: The Filipino as Painter (Eugenio Lopez Foundation, 1980).

An important example of his early work, "Las Damas Romanas" was painted in 1882 while Luna was a student at the Spanish Academy in Rome. It was completed between his prize-winning works "Death of Cleopatra," which won a silver medal in the Madrid Exposition of 1881, and "Spoliarium," which took the first gold medal in the Madrid Exposition of 1884. "Las Damas Romanas" itself won a Diploma of Honor at the Munich Art Exposition of 1886.

Depicting two Roman girls sporting with their hunting dogs, with flocks of doves symbolizing the divine, this work is in essence a picture of the abundant richness of life, with humankind shown in harmony with nature. The artist observed and sketched classical Roman architecture and artifacts as studies and this work is a culmination of these observations.

This extraordinary work will be offered alongside 120 other works of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art, a category that provides a distinctive element in the art market of Hong Kong and contributes to the full richness and flavor of the art from Asia that Christie’s offers each season. -- Reprinted from The Manila Bulletin