Contrasted with these terrestrial preparations are the motley paintings
on the walls representing religious matters, such as "Purgatory,"
"Hell," "The Last Judgment," "The Death of the Just," and "The Death
of the Sinner."
At the back of the room, fastened in a splendid and elegant framework,
in the Renaissance style, possibly by Arevalo, is a glass case in
which are seen the figures of two old women. The inscription on this
reads: "Our Lady of Peace and Prosperous Voyages, who is worshiped in
Antipolo, visiting in the disguise of a beggar the holy and renowned
Capitana Inez during her sickness." [15] While the work reveals little
taste or art, yet it possesses in compensation an extreme realism,
for to judge from the yellow and bluish tints of her face the sick
woman seems to be already a decaying corpse, and the glasses and other
objects, accompaniments of long illness, are so minutely reproduced
that even their contents may be distinguished. In looking at these
pictures, which excite the appetite and inspire gay bucolic ideas, one
may perhaps be led to think that the malicious host is well acquainted
with the characters of the majority of those who are to sit at his
table and that, in order to conceal his own way of thinking, he has
hung from the ceiling costly Chinese lanterns; bird-cages without
birds; red, green, and blue globes of frosted glass; faded air-plants;
and dried and inflated fishes, which they call botetes.
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