| Artist | Juan Luna |
|---|---|
| Year | 1886 |
| Location | Malacañang Palace |
The Blood Compact (Spanish: El Pacto de Sangre[1]) is an award-winning 1886 “historic and historical”[2][3] painting by Filipino painter Juan Luna.[4]
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Juan Luna’s The Blood Compact portrays the blood compact ritual between Rajah Sikatuna (also known as Datu Sikatuna) and Miguel López de Legazpi who is accompanied by other conquistadors. Rajah Sikatuna was described to be “being crowded out of the picture by Miguel López de Legazpi and his fellow conquistadores”.[5]
Juan Luna completed The Blood Compact in 1886, a year after he moved to Paris to open a studio. It was also the year after Luna became a friend of Félix Resurrección Hidalgo, another known Filipino painter.[1] In 1904, the painting won the first prize in Paris, France and at the St. Louis Exposition in the United States.[6] The masterpiece was painted by Luna[7] during his four-year pensionadoship from the Ayuntamiento de Manila,[1][5] enabling him to continue studying painting in Rome.[8] It is one of the three paintings Luna gave the Government of Spain, even though he was only obligated to paint just one canvas during the pensionadoship.[5][8] The other paintings are Don Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, a painting that was burned during the Philippine-Spanish war, and Governor Ramon Blanco, a work that became a part of the Lopez Museum collection.[5] This is one of the last paintings created by Luna.[6] The Blood Compact painting is currently displayed at the top of the grand staircase leading towards the Ceremonial Hall of the Malacañang Palace, the seat of government of the Philippines.[1][3][5][8]
In 2008, The Blood Compact together with other paintings made by Luna became a part of a twenty-three painting exhibition from the collection of the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI). The public exhibition celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the Bank of the Philippines Islands. The event was the first time that the so-called "BPI collection" was shared with the public. The Blood Compact and the other paintings in the exhibition are considered as the “expression of the coming of the age of the Filipino and the birth of the Philippines as a nation in the late 19th century.”[2]
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