Cockfighting, or sabong, was among the most popular pastimes in the colonial Philippines, and the gallera, the cockpit, was a fixture of town social life. The Spanish administration regulated and taxed the practice, making it both a cultural institution and a source of colonial revenue.
José Honorato Lozano documented this scene as part of his Tipos del País watercolors, a body of work produced in the mid-nineteenth century recording the customs, costumes, and daily life of Philippine society. The Esterior de una Gallera depicts the exterior of a cockpit, recording the setting of a central social activity in colonial towns. Lozano worked primarily in Manila and produced illustrations that served as visual records of Philippine society for both local and foreign audiences. His work is considered among the most detailed and culturally specific visual documentation of the Philippines in the Spanish colonial period.
This print preserves a record of the cockpit and its place in colonial Philippine social life.
Available as a fine art print
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