By Dr. Jaime C. Laya
On a 1983 flight from New York: Santa Catalina de Alejandría’s painting by Renaissance master Raphael Sanzio, contemporary (and competitor) of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The masterpiece had just been acquired by First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos and I happened to be in New York then. She asked me to bring the work to Manila. With thick padding, it was about as large as a suitcase—too bulky to be hand carried and of course unthinkable as checked in luggage. So I bought another ticket and seat-belted it beside me. The next time I met the saint was in Manila’s Metropolitan Museum along with Imelda’s other art treasures.
I saw Sta. Catalina again last week on a secondhand magazine cover, Christie’s International Magazine (January 1991). It featured “The Philippine Collection” of Georgian silver and paintings about to be auctioned by PCGG “to fund the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, centerpiece of the Aquino Government.” Star item was my seatmate with an estimate of $800,000 to $1,200,000.
Renaissance Art Counterclockwise from right: Christie’s International Magazine (January 1991) cover with Raphael’s St. Catherine; David (detail) by Francisco de Zurbaran; and 16th to 18th century European paintings from the Imelda Romualdez-Marcos Collection auctioned by the PCGG (1991), The Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Adriaen Isenbrandt, View of the Bay of Posilippo, Naples by Claude Joseph Vernet, and Lady with a Cat by Pier Leone Ghezzi.
It goes on to describe the collection’s 18th century English silver including the “renowned Egremont Service, consisting of more than 100 pieces … made by Paul Storr in 1806 and 1807”; “the Craven service, also numbering more than 100 pieces made by Sebastian and James Crespell between 1766 and 1772”; “splendid silver and silver-gilt from the greatest silversmiths of the Georgian period including the famous Hassel silver by Lamerie, a superb and finely engraved work from 1736.”
Further, “The more than 70 Old Master paintings in the Philippine Collection are one of the most interesting groups of Italian paintings to come on the market in recent years.” St. Catherine was described as “the most important work in the collection,” “one of the very few Raphaels left in private hands,” and that “a preparatory drawing is in the Louvre, in the Baron Edmond de Rothschild Collection.”
Other highlights of the auction were Titian’s portrait of Giulio Romano that the Duke of Mantua sold to England’s King Charles I; Tintoretto’s The Miraculous Draught of Fishes; a view of Venice by Francesco Guardi; and allegorical figures by his brother Gianantonio, all ex-Marcos, sequestered by PCGG.
A further 26 paintings were “released to Christie’s by the United States District Court, Southern District of New York … seized in France” as part of an investigation involving Adnan Khashoggi and the Marcoses. These included Francisco de Zurbaran’s David with the Head of Goliath, El Greco’s The Coronation of the Virgin, Veronese’s Venice Adoring the Christ Child, Francois Boucher’s Apotheosis of Aeneas, and a pair of Franz Hals portraits. I remember the Zurbaran hanging by the elevator of the New York townhouse on East 66th Street where Mrs. Marcos used to stay.
I don’t know how much the silver and Old Masters fetched and what agrarian reform it financed but certainly the collection would be worth far more now. Just the other month, Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi sold for $450.3 million or R23 billion. Pity, the rush to sell Mrs. Imelda Marcos’ collection.
Notes: (a) The R23 billion paid for the Leonardo is enough to keep the entire U.P. System operating for two years; (b) Much of the silver were gifts to the Marcoses on their 1979 silver wedding anniversary, including the Paul de Lamerie tray from Morocco’s King Hassan II; and (c) Monet’s Le bassin aux Nympheas and other works had apparently been concealed. The Monet was auctioned in 2010 for $32 million by Vilma Bautista, former Philippine diplomat and Marcos aide. She was charged, convicted for conspiracy and tax fraud, and sentenced to up to six years’ imprisonment
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