Category: Portraits

  • Mga Bilanggong Birhen (1977), an Amorsolo-Pastoral in Film

    Mga Bilanggong Birhen (1977) is set on a Visayan hacienda during the early years of American colonial administration. The film follows the Sagrada family—Felipa, Juan, Doña Sagrada, and the daughters Celina and Milagros—within a household that retains social structures established during the late Spanish period. Throughout the film, the architecture of the ancestral home, its…

  • Portrait of the Azcárraga Family (c.1827–1830)

    Retrato de la familia Azcárraga (c.1827–1830) by Juan Arzeo consists of two oil-on-canvas portraits depicting members of the Azcárraga family of Manila. The sitters are José Azcárraga y Ugarte, an Escolta bookseller; his wife María Isidra Palmera y Bersoza, described in period sources as a mestiza de Albay; and their children José Jr. and Pilar.…

  • Manton de Manila

    The mantón de Manila became one of the most recognizable textiles in nineteenth-century Spain, and Juan Luna’s Mujer con mantón de Manila (c. 1880s) offers a precise record of its material qualities and its use in urban fashion. The painting shows a woman standing outdoors, wrapped in a large silk embroidered shawl. Its cream ground,…