319. SAN RAMON NONATO: The Unborn

The fairly-popular saint, San Ramon Nonato, was delivered by ceasarian section in 1204, as his mother died during childbirth. Thus, his last name –non natus—not born. Due to the nature of his birth, he is invoked for safe childbirth by mothers and midwives. The saint joined the Mercedarian order in Barcelona, under San Pedro Nolasco, whom he succeeded.

San Ramon went to Algeria to ransom slaves, offering himself as hostage for their release. While there, he converted several Mohammedans that caused his capture and torture. On his return to Spain in 1239, he was named Cardinal by Pope Gregory IX, but died on his way to Rome.

He is often depicted wearing a the habit of a Mercedarian, wearing a cardinal's red mozzetta. He is also shown  holding a monstrance and a palm symbolizing his martyrdom.

This chapel-size Philippine San Ramon Nonato, stands 18 inches tall (missing a base). It shows the saint wearing the red short cape of a cardinal. He is outfitted with glass eyes. He retains his original monstrance made of tin on his right hand. The santo, with its original paint,  was purchased from Cristobal Antiques at the Mabini Art Center in the 1980s.

In Latin American art, he is shown with a padlock on his lips. This is in one reference to a legend that  San Ramon continued to preach the Christian faith while imprisoned, so his lips were sealed by his jailors  who bored a hole through saint's lips with a hot iron, and attached a padlock to silence him. Because of this, he is also invoked against false accusations, lies, gossip, slander, ill talk and secrecy of confessions.

There are several parishes in the Philippines under the patronage of San Ramon Nonato, including the parish of Su-ay in Negros Occidental and in Sorsogon City. There is also a shrine dedicated to him in Tagas, Daraga. Albay.  Feast day: August 31.

300. MY FIRST SAN ROQUE

San Roque (St. Roch of Montpellier)-- along with  San Vicente Ferrer, San Isidro Labrador, San Jose--are perhaps the most popular santo devotions in the early days of our Christianization, this, based on the abundance of images carved in their likeness.  San Isidro was a natural choice for an agricultural country, while San Jose, well, he was Jesus’ father. The winged San Vicente was known as an “angel of the Apocalypse”, and angels, too,  appear in the iconographies of  San Vicente and San Isidro Could it be our fascination with heavenly winged messengers  that drew Filipinos  closer to these saints?

A more plausible explanation was that our islands and its people were prone to widespread epidemics. The cholera pandemic that killed a million people in Russia hit the Philippines in 1858. The great cholera epidemic would happened again in 1882 and from 1902-1905 that claimed over 200,000 lives.  In the course of time, we have had severe outbreaks of  smallpox , typhoid fever, malaria and tuberculosis.

Our Spanish colonizers, in order to facilitate their evangelization, introduced us to San Roque, his life and his works---how he ministered to the sick in plague-ridden Italy, until he got ill himself. He retreated to a cave where a dog came to bring him bread for sustenance, and licked his wounds that healed them. After his death, an angel was said to descend from heaven, holding a tablet which he laid on the head of the saint. On it was written a prayer, which declared that anyone who calls on San Roque will be spared from  any pestilence.

Because of this, the friars urged the Filipinos to invoke the saint against epidemics and “peste”, cholera, most specially.  People also dropped down on their knees to appeal to San Roque to cure their skin ailments, relieve the pain of bad knees, and keep their dogs healthy.

I can’t even remember what particular shop I brought my first antique San Roque. I do know that I got it in the early ‘80s from one of the stores in Mabini Art Center, then one of the ‘antique’ enclaves of Ermita. I paid exactly Php 170 for this primitive folk example,  which came complete, although its head seemed to have fallen off and then reattached at some point. I guess this was why I got it for that bargain price, as you can get a perfect set back then for Php 300.

The 12 inch., rather thin San Roque stands on a plain, rectangular base, adding ¾” of an inch more to its height. His head sits askew on its shoulders; I had thought it was due to the bad restoration, but I had the head properly re-attached since, and it seems it was really carved with an awkward tilt. The saint’s eyes are bulgy, the beard full, and the mouth is wide.

Wearing a pilgrim cape and a short tunic, San Roque is shown lifting the hem high to reveal the wound on his left knee. There is quite a distance between his pointing finger and the location of the wound though. Note also how rough the folds of the tunic are carved,

He holds a staff with his right hand—I lost the original staff when one of his fingers broke—the one that secured it in the first place. What he now holds is a replacement fashioned from a bamboo barbecue stick. In place of a carved water flask, I just hanged a tiny metal bell.

The unimpressive angel—carved from a narrow piece of wood—stands 7 inches, and no longer has its tablet. It could have been made of tin, on which a native ‘oracion’ would have been handwritten. The native dog has broken one rear and one front foot, but  it has still the ‘pan de sal’ firmly between his teeth.

I have kept this San Roque for some thirty years—unappealing it might be—primarily for sentimental reasons. I bought it at a time when I had the audacity to start a relatively expensive hobby, while struggling to make a living.  The thought of acquiring better quality santos was farfetched from my mind, I had no choice but to buy only what I could afford—often the headless, armless, imperfect ones--the kind Mabini dealers regularly pass up. In all those years that I’ve had San Roque with me, I have neverbeen visited by any pestilence nor  afflicted by a malady of the serious kind---except perhaps, antique addiction!

267. FROM SAN LUIS GONZAGA TO SAN LUIS OBISPO DE TOLOSA

The first time I saw this antique ivory santo in a Mabini antique shop, it was a puzzler to both the dealer and me. It was slightly larger than the usual tabletop size, with an-all ivory head, heavily stained and with a crack running down one cheek. Only one hand was of ivory, the other was made of wood. It stood on a squarish base.

Unusual too were its metal accessories—it had a halo that looked like a gear of a large clock. It was also holding a staff and was carrying a metal basket. I knew at once, that the baskets and the staff were not original to the piece—maybe these were added to give more value to the santo, but which added more confusion as to the identity of the santo.

The condition, the price and the anonymity of the santo were perhaps the reasons why the santo stayed on the store shelf and remained unsold, for in my next visit—it was still there. This gave me the opportunity to examine the santo upclose. I had suspected it to be a figure of San Luis Gonzaga (St. Aloysius Gonzaga), because the tell-tale signs were there—the receding forehead, the straight nose, the gaunt look. His right hand could have held a spray of lilies, and the other hand, a crucifix—both iconographic attributes.

I sounded off santo restorer, Dr. Raffy Lopez, about this find, and I asked him to take a look—he might be interested in the mystery piece. And so he did, and after some negotiations, he brought the santo home.

He had agreed with my initial assessment, that the ivory santo was that of San Luis Gonzaga. It was also perfect for his next project—he was doing work in Lucban at that time, mounting a Marian exhibit. He was inspired to make a San Luis Obispo de Tolosa (St. Louis of Toulouse), Lucban’s patron, and felt that his newly-acquired santo could be transformed into one.

The first step Dr. Lopez took was the bleaching of the ivory head, which was badly stained and aged by time. The thorough cleaning revealed the white ivory beneath. The late Edgar Torres gave the santo its new encarna.

 The proportion of the wooden body was corrected as well—the body was cut at the waist and the torso was elevated to half a centimeter more. This would make the santo a stand a little under 16 inches.

Next came the painstaking work of recreating the bishop’s vestments. Dr. Lopez fashioned an alb made from exquisite lace and a miniature stole that was hand-painted with the tiny images of the four Evangelists.

Beneath the alb is an embroidered ruby-red cassock. The holy bishop is arrayed in a deep yellow cope, heavily embroidered with gold thread, forming floral patterns. On his head is a bishop’s miter of the same color scheme.

Completing the look are the silver works, consisting of book and the crosier, that were specially designed by Dr. Lopez and executed by silversmith-jewelers from Quiapo and Pateros. San Luis wears a ruby ring, as well as a pectoral cross with a ruby inset. His original halo was re-plated and used. A discarded silver crown—symbolizing his royal associations, rests at his feet, on a tiny peaña appended to the saint’s own gilded peaña decorated with stylized acanthus leaves.

Finally, the whole santo ensemble was encased inside a virina, and, for awhile, remained in the ownership of Dr. Lopez, until a private collector from Lucban acquired it. It has been a long journey of transformation, but now, that has come full circle, for the old San Luis has returned home to Lucban at last—as San Luis de Obispo de Tolosa.

Many thanks to Dr. Raffy Lopez, Mr. James Yee for providing the photos and restoration details.

242. IN THE COMPANY OF SPIRITS

FLOY QUINTOS AMONG FRIENDS AT GALLERY DEUS.
Photo by Romy Homillada.

By Alya B. Honasan
yOriginally published in the Artwatch section of OPINION Weekend (OW) Magazine. 

 How did a playwright, writer and director turned his passion into a fulfilling profession? 

 With the blessings of his ‘children.’ 

 Does Floy Quintos tell if a particular bulol or santo, a prime piece of tribal or colonial art, is a good one? “Very Buddhist,” he says in all sincerity.”It’s in the eyes. They should be looking at you, but at the same time,seem like they’re looking beyond you or something deep inside you.”

The award-winning playwright , writer and director is a firm believer in the life force that lives within such cultural antiquities, a force that influences the decisions of this brand new entrepreneur. “It’s this little spirit, a spark of life. It’s the spirituality of the carver and a reflection of how ingrained such spirituality in their lifestyle. You can own a fake, but it doesn’t look at you in the right way.”

 Such a primal sensitivity and a collector’s instinct has helped Quintos amass a formidable trove of tribal and colonial sculpture, textiles and adornments—“small and big things, all authentic”—which he began putting together at the age of 12 when he purchased his first P5.00 santo from a shop in Mabini. “I don’t know why I like them." It was probably just a response to something in his soul.

Those were the years when there was still really great stuff in Manila, when walking into an antique shop was an adventure.” Quintos remembers “making connections with mountain people’ on treks to Sagada, Baguio and Banawe—“something I can’t quite do anymore at 41.” He laughs. “Me? Walk in the fields with a camote stick?”

 Today, the same folks still look him up in Manila when there’s merchandise for sale, and after having learned his slessos buying the ocassional “mega-dud” and reading up on the subject, Quintos has become a discriminating collector who knows what he wants. Friends have long bugged him to open his own shop. Then, serendipitously, Willie Versoza, owner of the pioneering antique shop Likha and a friend of Quintos, announced he was closing shop after the death of his partner, Jean Louis Levi.

Quintos had been doing some thinking. “I realized I had also amassed so much, and I was wondering, am I hoping to be collecting forever?” The rent was good, the building was owned by a friend, and Quintos, while working constantly in the commercial circuit , was looking for something to revive his weary soul. “I figured this was the career break I’ve been looking for.”

 Thus, one month ago, the orange façade and the olive green interiors of Gallery Deus welcomed the public. It was named after the Latin word for “God” which Quintos has always liked for the reference to “the spirit in all of us”.

 He was between projects, fresh from directing Ai-Ai del las Alas’ West Coast concerts and on the way to Phuket to direct a TV show, with just one Sunday to spare.He fixed the shop and made the leap from collector to dealer in one day—a move that was a lot tougher than it seems. “I learned to be not so acquisitive.” Quintos laughs.”I painted the shops, put in the shelves, but I kept procrastinating about the actual move and choosing which ones of my children to put on sale. I’ve kept exactly 6 bulols and 5 santos.”

 Quintos is at his shop from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. when he isn’t doing a show. He is having a field day treating his windows like production numbers. “This week, it’s called the beheading of John the Baptist; next week will be “Horsey-Horsey, Tigidig-tigidig!”

 Seriously,Quintos adds,”I never thought I could do business. Now I’m able to compute, and I guess, like most dealers who love their stuff and don’t look at it as just merchandise, I love to make chika the customers.”

 Consistent with his attitude, he doesn’t hard-sell the items. If a sale doesn’t push though though, Quintos assumes that the piece simply “doesn’t want to go just yet.” As a collector, Quintos is glad that Filipinos are becoming more educated buyers of tribal art, even as the levels of scholarships and appreciation are iconically still higher abroad. “It’s the foreigners who know what’s good and what’s special.”

 On the personal front. Quintos has beenmore discriminating in choosing projects and is making more time to sit back, gain perspective—and write.”I’ve got about 5 plays inside me that need to see the light, and this kind of work is giving me the time and the inspiration..” With a little help from his friends, of course.