Focus on this artwork and explain the Historical overview.
Las Damas Romanas is one of the early works of Luna as a painter that resurfaced in the past quarter of a century after being presumed to be either lost or missing.  Before its reappearance in Paris many years before 2008, it had been documented only as a title and as a listed work of Luna in the 1957 biography of Luna written by Carlos E. Da Silva.  The painting had also been documented through a black and white photograph from the files of Alfonso T. Ongpin, a historian and pre-war art dealer.  In 1980, the image from Ongpin was reprinted by Santiago Pilar in the book "Juan Luna: The Filipino As Painter".
Roman Juan Luna