A landmark work by the 19th-century Filipino painter and activist Juan Luna is one of the newest highlights at the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Una Bulaquena is one of Luna’s most enigmatic works. The painting depicts a young Filipina woman, poised and composed in traditional attire. In one hand she holds a handkerchief. In the other, an ivory fan.

Painted in 1895, the work is a National Cultural Treasure of the Philippines, and offers a rare glimpse into Luna’s softer, more introspective style.

The Badoc-born artist is perhaps best known for his epic paintings, which reframe moments from ancient history as allegories of colonial oppression. His famous Spoliarium, for instance, is set in ancient Rome and shows dying gladiators being dragged out of an arena, stripped of their weapons, armor and dignity. The painting can be seen as a metaphor for colonial brutality and apathy. On the far right of the painting is a weeping woman often interpreted as representing the “Mother Country” as she witnesses the plundering of her people.

Una Bulaquena is a very different painting. It is more personal and restrained. If Spoliarium roars with political symbolism, Una Bulaquena whispers of grace and the complex interiority of its subject.

“Una Bulaquena is one of Luna’s most recognisable works,” says Jorell Legaspi, deputy director-general for Museums of the National Museum of the Philippines, which has loaned the painting to Louvre Abu Dhabi for a year.

“It has inspired many creatives and pop culture here in the Philippines over over the decades. The painting is our second largest Juan Luna painting after Spoliarium.”

Though less overtly political than Spoliarium, the painting still challenged Eurocentric aesthetics through its dignified portrayal of a Filipina subject. “It represents a total opposite of what a 19th-century artist who is trained in the European canon would feature,” Legaspi says. “It depicts a Filipino woman, as opposed to what you would have in a European subject painting, especially if its depicting nobility or aristocracy.”

That’s not to say that Una Bulaquena does not have its own regal flair. The woman depicted in the painting comes from upper middle-class society, as evidenced by her clothing. Her baro’t saya consists of a blouse, saya (long skirt), panuelo (neck cover) and tapis (knee-length overskirt). Interestingly, some of her clothing was produced using pineapple fibre.

“It’s a sheer textile that’s exquisite and expensive,” Legaspi says. “Only people of affluent backgrounds can actually afford these types of of garments. These are the symbols or clues that the subject of the painting is from an affluent family.”

But who is the woman depicted in Una Bulaquena? For years, her identity remained a mystery and was left open to speculation. Recent scholarship, however, points to a more concrete figure: Emiliana Yriarte Trinidad, a young woman from Bulacan. Archival photographs reinforce this idea, as Trinidad’s features sharply resemble the sitter’s.

“She was herself an artist and student of Luna,” Legaspi says. “She was only 16 or 17 when she sat for Luna for this painting. There are some written accounts that Luna was actually in love with her but because of the age gap, her parents did not approve of him as a suitor.”

However, Trinidad’s relationship with the painting is not merely as its subject. In fact, she may have had an active role in protecting it through the Second World War, when the Philippines was occupied by Japan, suffering immense destruction and loss before being liberated by Allied forces in 1945.

“There was an assumption that the painting was hers, and that it was a gift from Luna to her,” Legaspi says. “In order to safeguard the painting from damage or being looted, Emiliana herself sold the painting to an art collector and patron to protect it.”

The painting’s provenance is a bit murky after that, Legaspi says. But somehow the painting ended up in the presidential palace, where it stayed until 1986, when the People Power Revolution peacefully overthrew dictator Ferdinand Marcos, ending two decades of authoritarian rule.

“The National Museum of the Philippines was able to retrieve this painting from the presidential palace and kept it under its care since then.”

As Una Bulaquena is regarded as a national treasure, several permits and a great deal of care was required before bringing it to Abu Dhabi.

“The fact that it traveled for the very first time ever, left the Philippines to come to Abu Dhabi, is a huge honour,” Aisha AlAhmadi, curatorial assistant at Louvre Abu Dhabi, says.

The painting now hangs between two other masterpieces from the same era – Auguste Renoir’s La Tasse de Chocolat (Cup of Chocolate) and Edouard Manet’s The Bohemian.

“She demands her own presence, with her poised, elegant and dignified look,” AlAhmadi says. “The scale of the painting also commands its own respect and attention. It made sense to put the painting here, because in this gallery we have the theme of modern subject and landscape. Looking at how artists in the 19th century were looking at portraiture and in different styles.”

For the UAE’s sizable Filipino community, the painting offers a strong moment of cultural recognition and connection.

“It can be a proud moment to see something so significant in size, beauty and history,” Legaspi says.

Una Bulaquena is not the only work at Louvre Abu Dhabi that is on loan from an institution in the Philippines. A gold cup, dated between 900 and 1200 AD, and a funerary mask from the same period, have been on loan from the Ayala Museum since 2022.