Connoisseur of the Finer Things

When Jaime Ponce de Leon opened León Gallery in 2010, he didn’t realise then that it would eventually be the country’s leading auction house

- Franz Sorilla IV

Nestled in the heart of Legazpi Village in Makati City, León Gallery first opened its doors a dozen years ago. It began as an exhibition space featuring works that Jaime Ponce de Leon, its proprietor, had discovered on his travels abroad: rare Filipino old masters, exquisite silver, as well as ivory antiques that had been part of the Manila-Acapulco trade to Europe.

While possessing a degree from his hometown’s Silliman University in Dumaguete, Ponce de Leon had early on shifted gears and wound up at the Philippine School of Interior Design. “Even during my first days as a designer, I had become enamoured with art,” he is quick to note. “I believe art is the soul of any setting—and art was always the focal point of my interiors.”

Eventually, the gallery would become, in Ponce de Leon’s words, “a sort of hub for people to look and see what was new” and talk about the goings-on in the art world. It was thus completely by accident that he would find himself in the auction business. “By happenstance”, he recalls, “a friend walked in one day and asked if I could help him liquidate his company’s art holdings. I immediately said ‘yes’ although, in retrospect, I had no idea what possessed me to say so quickly and gladly! Until that moment, I had no formal experience in the business except for buying from small houses in Paris and Madrid.”