Spain Insuring the Glory of the Philippines

In 1888 Víctor Balaguer, the Spanish minister in charge of the overseas colonies, commissioned a large version of a composition Juan Luna had painted four years earlier for a Filipino patron. Luna was a painter from the Philippines, living in Paris, and Spain still ruled his country. This canvas is the biggest of the versions, 442 centimetres high. The ministry paid 10,000 pesetas that July, and the picture went to the Universal Exposition in Barcelona.

Two women are seen from behind, climbing a flight of steps towards the light, the taller one leading the other. The Spanish title the museum uses says Spain leading the Philippines to glory. Luna moved among the Filipino reformers then living in Spain, who at that point were asking for equal standing inside the empire rather than separation from it. Ten years later Spanish rule in the Philippines was over.

The canvas went first to the Museum of the Overseas in Madrid, then to the modern art museum, and it has belonged to the Prado since 2016. For years it has been on deposit with the city council of Cádiz. On 16 September 2026 it was taken down there and sent to the Prado's workshops for technical study and restoration, with no date given for its return.