Focus on this artwork and discuss the Loss and rediscovery.
After its exhibition in 1889, the painting remained in the possession of the artist until his death in Hong Kong in 1899. Afterwards, there was no word on what happened to the painting. There were two plausible scenarios regarding its fate. One possibility is that the painting was destroyed along with other works by Luna by the Pardo de Tavera family following his double murder of Paz and her mother, Juliana Gorricho in 1892. Another possibility is that the painting was listed in a French museum but subsequently lost during the World Wars.Subsequently, a Spanish aristocratic family obtained ownership of the artwork during the 1920s. However, it resurfaced in the 1970s when Philippine collector Eleuterio Pascual rediscovered it. Pascual expressed interest in acquiring the painting, but the family declined to sell. In the 1990s, a private collector from the Philippines made an attempt to purchase the artwork from the family's heirs, but their offer was once again refused.In 2014, Jaime Ponce de Leon, the founder of the Philippine-based auction house León Gallery, acquired the painting from the heirs of the said European family. Following a meticulous three-year authentication process, de Leon purchased the artwork and returned it to the Philippines in 2017. The painting was then stored in a private facility in the Philippines until October 2022, when de Leon eventually agreed to have it publicly displayed. In 2023, the painting was loaned to the Ayala Museum for a period of three years and opened for public viewing.
Ayala Museum Hong Kong