If you are not interested in lots of information and personal thoughts about this artwork ... move on, because the following tid bits of info may bore you!
If, however, you really would like to know more than the usual "Hey there! I have a picture for you" followed by "crickets chirping", then grab yourself a cuppa and have a read ...
ARTWORK BACKGROUND:
Our family is very much into "the Arts" in all it's forms, from music to creative art to chinaware and even classic old (quality) technology!
On a personal level, I have a great interest in the "human creativity" side of whatever I come across and ask myself questions such as "how was this made?, who was the creator of the item and what was their life like? What are they trying to show or tell us? Our creativity makes us all unique, an ability that no other living creature possesses.
Our personal artwork focus has always been 'landscapes', both Australian and New Zealand but here is an artwork that my Asawa's extended family have asked me to see if someone may be interested in it.
The scene depicted is the well known (to Filipino's) area of Manila called Escalto (Calle de la Escolta). This area has a far longer history than here in Sydney or my country of birth, New Zealand! It was established way back in the late 1500's by the Spanish and was a trading hub used by the Spanish galleons. The area was prosperous and had many shops and commercial premises, often referred to as the "Wall Street of the Philippines" back in the day. Some of the Neo Classical and Art Deco style of buildings still remain and even today it is a very vibrant and busy cultural hub (especially on the weekends), often visited by locals and tourists alike.
The scene is obviously a depiction of the area as it would have looked around the late 1800's ~ early 1900's, particularly note the building styles and the electric tram and tram tracks in the road as the Manila Electric Railroad And Light Company introduced electric trams around 1905, the days of horse drawn trams were numbered!
Funny enough, when I look at this artwork I get the distinct impression it was intended as some sort of architectural depiction - also like something a town planning department might produce because the scene doesn't "do a lot", for me at least. Just a few people on the street, not even showing their faces and not a lot of "activity" in the artwork. The focus (in my view) of this artwork is on the architecture of the buildings, the street signage and a general "feel" for how this area would have looked at the turn of the 20th Century. In my view, I would even go so far as to view this artwork as something akin to a town planners visualisation of an area, perhaps this was created by a government department originally!
The owners of this artwork have been unable to tell me who created this artwork although they swear it was professionally framed in Manila, apparently it was worth it as they paid a lot of peso's for this artwork (I am told) I am told that the artwork and frame were originally two separate items, meaning that the artwork was purchased and then they had it professionally framed, in Manila.
I have searched the usual online artwork sites, those that sell prints or licenced photography but I have been unable to find anything similar to this artwork, I did this because my first thought was that this was a printed copy of an original artwork but I don't think this is the case.
Next I tried to image search using the "unreliable" (in my view) Google image search and after some hunting around I DID find an exact photograph of this scene but it has been colourised. The website which had this photograph is no longer "reachable" so here I met a dead end but apparently that colour photograph was taken from a Post Card sold at the Rizal Library - the holder of many rare and interesting historical pieces of art. Unfortunately their catalogue of images doesn't seem to be available online. Here is a snapshot of that colour photograph I (actually Google Image search) found
I believe this scene would have originally been monochromatic, not colourised - we are talking the early 1900's here.
Here's the rub ...
Hand written across the bottom of the frame (not within the artwork area) are three separate markings using what appears to be a lead pencil and in a cursive style which I found difficult to read. I believe a REAL lead pencil was used because upon very close examination I can see the distinctive "Silvery" look from the lead on the paper.
These writings would APPEAR to be the year it was produced (on the right), the title (in the centre) and the artists name to the right.
At first I thought this may be a limited edition but the 87 does not seem to have a responding number of copies made next to it or at least I cannot figure out exactly what it says! So I believe this is an original with a date.
An original what ...? I hear you thinking.
To be frank, I am not sure how this artwork was created, here are my observations and thoughts on this, while keeping in mind this artwork is behind glass and I am not about to remove the art tape around the frame at the rear!
a) The base paper looks almost like a parchment paper but quite flat
b) The actual artwork has that strange Yellow Green background, I feel this colouring was produced when the artwork was produced, it certainly hasn't been painted onto the paper.
c) I looked EXTREMELY closely (under high magnification) around various areas of the artwork and there are NO signs of those tell tale dots from an electronic or even lithographic print process. The "look" of the artwork (when examined extremely closely) reminds me of the limited etching copies that we used to have from the celebrated Australian artist, Norman Lindsay.
Perhaps the original was an artwork etched on Copper plate (for example) and then a facsimile made from that plate?
I have provided some closeup photographs so that anyone interested can examine the artwork for themselves but I declare you will not see any dots!
d) The artwork is drawn, not painted. Actually the line work is very detailed and where shadowing is created, the darker areas are created by making the lines closer or more random - not really shading.
e) The frame is made of wood and looks to be from the 1970's ~ 80's era
f) I would agree that the artwork has been professionally mounted inside this frame, looking closely at the borders I can see very small "cut" marks where to border was made to suit the artwork - this is not one of those "off the shelf" frames into which the artwork has been thrown!
DIMENSIONS:
Frame (external): 309mm x 283mm
Artwork: 172mm x 135mm
Hanging weight: 650g
COSMETIC CONDITION:
Apparently this artwork has not been "on a wall" for quite some time ... the owners bought it years ago, bought it back to Australia and then it sat in their spare room ever since.
Because of this, the condition is "like original"
NO damage to the wooden frame
NO damage to the front glass
NO damage or markings of any kind to the rear (and the artist's tape is not lifting!)
NO damage to the artwork itself
So there you have it, quite an extensive "in detail" look at this artwork, hopefully this piece will have some special significance to themselves or perhaps even it was an area they used to frequent in days gone by!
We will ship this artwork anywhere around Australia at a fixed cost of $9 (it's our shipping policy, all orders between $30 ~ $75 are shipped at $9, above $75 is FREE SHIPPING. We do it like this to encourage folks to not worry about the shipping costs of our artwork, sometimes the shipping costs can be VERY high in normal circumstances!
Of course I will also ship Internationally but at standard "market rates" - no discounted shipping is available for International buyers.
We take great care in packing especially delicate items such as this artwork.
Like all of our items on this family website, we do not trade or buy/sell in the world of art (or chinaware or electronics for that matter) - goodness gracious we have collected enough over the last 50 years ourselves without having other people's "stuff"
