Louvre hosts cultural treasure 'Una Bulaquena' of Philippines

Representative of the iron will of a people found in every corner of the world, an oil painting of a 16-year-old elitista provincial lass is now on display at the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

- Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

This is the 185X87 centimetre rendition of Emiliana Yriarte Trinidad (January 4, 1878-March 22, 1971) by no less than her art instructor, Juan Luna (October 25, 1857-December 7, 1899), completed in 1895; known as “Una Bulaquena” or “La Bulaquena.”

That was II years after Luna - older brother of another Philippine hero, General Antonio Luna (October 29, 1866-June 5, 1899) - won the grand prize at the 1884 Exposicion Nacional de Bellas Artes in Madrid, Spain for his “La Spolarium,” a mockery on the Spanish conquest of his mother-land, featuring dying gladiators.

Alongside other scions of wealthy Filipino and Philippine-born Spaniards in Europe, the elder art student Luna, propagated for liberty from Spain.

Unveiled last Monday in the presence of Department of Culture and Tourism/Louvre Abu Dhabi chairman Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak and Philippine Ambassador to the UAE Alfonso Ferdinand Ver, the painting, which Trinidad herself sold to a “very influential art collector” at the pre-stages of World War II, is the second to be loaned to the museum.