1936 / Oil on canvas / 71.12 x 118.11 cm / Artist: Fabian de la Rosa / Paulino and Hetty Que collection

A rare work by Fabian de la Rosa, [El Kundiman] is a genre painting portraying an interior scene with many figures. This musical gathering or song concert in the afternoon hours takes place in the spacious and carpeted sala of an ilustrado (educated) house. The ladies and gentlemen, separately seated in decorously spaced chairs, are in formal wear—the women elegant in their ternos (traditional dress) with large butterfly sleeves and long skirts, and the men impeccable in their white suits. The focus of attention, to which the main lines of the painting’s details are directed, is the female singer standing beside the piano as she sings—presumably, a kundiman (love song)—to the accompaniment of a male pianist. The men and women of the audience are engrossed in listening to the music, a perfect image of gentility. To further bring out the mood of internal absorption and quiet appreciation, the faces of the listeners on the left are set against the open space outside from which emanates the soft warmth of the sunlight translated into the emotional warmth of the artistic experience. They all belong to the period’s elite, cultural connoisseurs brought up in the amenities of social life and enjoying the artistic refinements of music and the visual arts, indicated by the paintings on the wall.

The painting was originally given by Fabian de la Rosa to Dr Luis U. Santos of Malolos, Bulacan, who treated de la Rosa for his eye problems. As a tribute to the highly cultured Dr Santos, de la Rosa painted the doctor in white suit sitting on a chair at the foreground, left-hand corner of the painting.