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PROPERTY FROM THE EDITH O'FARRELL COLLECTION Sumbungan signed and dated 1941 (lower right) oil on canvas 35" x 56" (89 cm x 142 cm) When Luna was released from prison in May 1897, he immediately sailed to Spain to plead with the Queen Regent, Maria Christina of Austria, for the release of his brother, Antonio, who was left in jail and exiled to Madrid's Carcel Modelo. During this time, Gaston O'Farrell paused his creative pursuits and studied commerce at his father's request. Luna's untimely death in 1899 left his star student in the shadows. Due to this, and further propelled by his father's death in February 1902, Gaston O'Farrell decided to pursue the "more practical" stuff. By this time, Gaston O'Farrell had earned the degree of perito mercantil from the Ateneo, allowing him to transition smoothly into the world of business and commerce. The 1907 Rosenstock's Directory of China and Manila listed Gaston O'Farrell as a clerk at Bazar Filipino, located along Escolta, which sold stationery, books, and periodicals. He would soon be promoted as manager. By the mid-1910s, Gaston O'Farrell would prosper in his business, thanks to his proficiency in French, becoming an agent-importer of French goods such as Michelin tires and Houbigant perfumes. He also became an agent for Messageries Maritimes, one of the most prolific French merchant shipping companies at that time. However, the learnings and experiences that Gaston O'Farrell acquired from Luna were too consequential on his growth as an artist and a person to be abandoned. The early years of the 20th century would bestow Gaston O'Farrell with the highest honors in various exhibitions. Gaston O'Farrell joined the Asociacion Internacional de Artistas de Manila, formed in 1903 by Rafael Enriquez, who would become the founding director of the UP School of Fine Arts in 1908. Gaston O'Farrell participated in the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair in Missouri, USA, sending his Portrait of Juan Luna, which ultimately won a bronze medal. He also participated in a 1908 exhibition organized by the Sociedad de las Artistas de Manila, with his 1902 painting of his widowed and mourning mother, Marie Blocquel, winning the gold medal (this piece was auctioned by Leon Gallery in 2014). He also won a bronze medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1815 for his piece, Umagang Tahimik. Gaston O'Farrell did not cut ties with the Luna family, comanaging a Manila café called Restaurante de Paris with his former mentor's son, Andres. Some sources state that Andres also accompanied his father and Gaston O'Farrell on their 1896 visit to Japan. Painting never left Gaston O'Farrell's preoccupation, and he continued producing works until his final years. The work at hand, titled Sumbungan, is one of his last paintings, created just a year before his demise on June 12, 1942 due to failing health. Sumbungan is also his only extant historical painting and manifests, even in his old age, the academic dexterity he acquired from Luna’s guidance. The work depicts the betrayal of the Katipunan by a katipunero, Teodoro Patiño, who revealed the existence of the revolutionary group to the Augustinian priest Mariano Gil, then the cura parroco of Tondo and whose face Gaston O’Farrell depicted with a high degree of accuracy. Patiño reportedly became fearful of the repercussions of the armed revolt and the danger it would pose to his sister, Honoria. An 1896 report by Olegario Diaz of the Guardia Civil Veterana, found in the archival documents acquired in 1997 by the Philippine government of the Cuerpo de Vigilancia de Manila, the intelligence body organized by the Spanish regime in 1895, details Patiño's betrayal of the Katipunan. Diaz's report stated (as translated in English from the original Spanish): "Terrified by the consequences of the criminal objectives of the Katipunan, he told everything he knew about the organization to his sister, then a student of Colegio de Looban, a school run by the Sisters of Charity. Patiño's   sister then told what she had learned from her brother to the Mother Superior. The Mother Superior then led the distraught Patiño to Fr. Mariano Gil, the parish priest of Tondo. Patiño reiterated to the priest everything he knew, such as the printing of the Katipunan materials in the printing press. Later on, Patiño showed Father Gil where they kept the lithographic materials used in printing Katipunan materials." Fr. Gil, accompanied by the guardia civil, raided the printing house of the Spanish newspaper Diario de Manila, whose katipunero employees clandestinely printed the first and only issue of the Kalayaan, the Katipunan's official newspaper edited by Emilio Jacinto, during the siesta of its Spanish staff (the second was already being prepared when the Katipunan was discovered).