Motherhood and the daily care of children were rarely the subject of colonial records, which focused on administration, commerce, and the church. Yet the india con su niño, the native woman with her child, represented one of the most common scenes of everyday Filipino life.
José Honorato Lozano documented this figure as part of his watercolor illustrations of Philippine social life, a body of work produced in the mid-nineteenth century that parallels the tipos del país tradition in its attention to costume, occupation, and social type. The India con su Niño depicts a native Filipino woman with her child in everyday dress, recording a moment of domestic life that written colonial documents rarely preserved. 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 domestic Filipino life during the colonial period.
Available as a fine art print
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