Blood on the canvas: The Pardo de Tavera and Gorricho dynasties

This week, on September 22, 1892, the painter Juan Luna made his Paris home into a scene as terrible as anything in his Spoliarium. Extremely jealous and convinced his wife was unfaithful, Luna fired through a locked door at Villa Dupont. His mother-in-law, Juliana Gorricho, died immediately. His wife, Maria de la Paz Pardo de Tavera, was gravely wounded and died days later. Paz’s brother Felix was wounded but survived. Over the years, much has been written about the famous painter who fired the shots. Far less has been said about the women he killed and the two remarkable families united in Paz: the Pardo de Taveras and the Gorrichos.

The Pardo de Taveras of the Philippines begin with Julian Pardo de Tavera and Juana Maria Gomez, who came to Manila in the 1820s. Their sons, Felix and Joaquin, studied Law at the University of Santo Tomas and married sisters Juliana and Gertrudis Gorricho. The family claimed Portuguese origins from Tavira and kinship with the noble Pardo-Taveras of Castile. The latter included Cardinal Juan Pardo de Tavera, Archbishop of Toledo, regent under Emperor Charles V, and inquisitor-general. Philippine accounts also speak of a “Marquis de Magahon,” apparently a corrupted reference to the genuine Marquisate de Malagón, associated with a Spanish Pardo-Tavera line. There is, however, no complete genealogy that connects the Philippine branch to the cardinal or marquises. Their noble ancestry is therefore mostly an old family claim rather than proven descent.

The Gorrichos contributed wealth and enterprise. Juliana’s parents were Jose Maria Damaso de Gorricho and Ciriaca de los Santos. Their ancestry combined Spanish Basque, Irish, and Filipino lines. Ciriaca, a Filipina from Cavite, was known to be an enterprising woman who helped create the family fortune by supplying hay for the Spanish cavalry.

Felix Pardo de Tavera and Juliana Gorricho had three children: Trinidad, Felix, and Paz. Widowed in 1864, Juliana moved her family to Europe. Her eldest son, Trinidad, became a physician, linguist, botanist, historian, and politician. His writings on Philippine languages, medicinal plants, and culture remain important, although his later association with the pro-American Federalista movement made him controversial.

Paz married Juan Luna on December 4, 1886. They had a son, Andres, and a daughter called Bibi, who died at about three. The marriage deteriorated when Luna repeatedly accused Paz of an affair with a Frenchman, Monsieur Dussaq. No persuasive proof of the alleged relationship has emerged. On the day before the shooting, Juliana reportedly warned her sons that Luna wanted to kill their sister. Luna was tried in Paris but acquitted in February 1893. Accounts attribute the verdict to temporary insanity, the period’s indulgence toward “crimes of passion”, and even racial arguments portraying the Filipino as naturally susceptible to amok. The original court records were later destroyed, leaving details disputed. The outcome is not: two women were dead, while Luna departed France with his son.

Five-year-old Andres survived and became one of the leading architects of prewar Manila. He designed the Crystal Arcade, Regina Building, and other landmarks, many destroyed during the Second World War. Published sources identify his wife as Grace McRae but do not securely document any children, so modern direct descendants of Paz cannot be asserted without further records.

The wider family continued through Trinidad’s branch. Among its later members was Dr. Carmen “Mita” Pardo de Tavera, a physician, anti-dictatorship activist, and social welfare secretary under President Corazon Aquino. She preserved the family’s legacy by donating Trinidad’s papers to the Ateneo de Manila. Her preservation work ensured that succeeding generations could encounter the family through its scholarship, correspondence, and public service, rather than only through the Paris tragedy.

The Paris crime is often told as a dark episode in the life of a national artist. Genealogy corrects that imbalance. Paz and Juliana were not merely Juan Luna’s wife and mother-in-law. They belonged to families of entrepreneurs, scholars, reformists, and public servants. Their histories and their names deserve to survive independently of the man who killed them.