Jose Ernesto Aguilera – First Visit With Portmann Group
19 Mar
This time around I visited my friend and humidor artist Jose Ernesto Aguilera at his Humidores Habana workshop twice.
Once with the Portmann group on Monday 24-th, the day the XVI Festival del Habano officially was inaugurated and again with my buddy Frank, who missed the first visit, on Wednesday 26-th February.
I have documented the 2 visits on 2 different posts on purpose so the progress of the humidor work can be seen.
Especially so on 3 of the humidors that were auctioned just days after our visit.
The first is the Montecristo desk humidor cum roller table which was auctioned at the Gala dinner on the 28-th, that is just 2 days after our last visit and after a starting bid of 10.000 € achieved a price at 170.000 €, the second is the square Cohiba humidor which can be seen during our second visit being readied in the open, it was also auctioned at the Gala dinner, starting bid was also 10.000 € and it went for 160.000 €.
The third is a joint work of art between J.E. Aguilera and Raul Valladares and it was auctioned 3 days after our visit at the Habana Libre Casa del Habano, an event Frank and I attended and where my friend Jimmy Ng from Singapore placed the successful bid at 20.000 CUC.
The Portmann group being at Aguilera’s workplace for the first time, my goal was to show to my friends how this passionate artist worked for the first 12 years of his endeavour. In the basement of a soviet style building where he still keeps his personal working space and where the silversmith and delicate artistry work is still being done.
Alex, his extremely professional and equally passionate assistant gave the group an excellent tour of the premises explaining all the intricate details, the search for aged timber in Havana’s old and derelict homes, the importance of old, aged and dried timber and many more fascinating information.
All were left highly impressed by the visit and meeting this highly regarded artist and great human being that Jose Ernesto is.
I am quite sure you will see his humidors at Portmann some time in the future …
Nino
First 21 pictures courtesy of Horst Thome/Christof R. Sage
