Three Marcos Paintings Taken From Imelda Marcos Put Up For Auction For $3 Million
MARCOS PAINTINGS – The three Marcos paintings, which were taken by the US government from Rep. Imelda Marcos, are currently put up for auction.
Rep. Imelda Marcos was found guilty by the Sandiganbayan. She was sentenced to 6-11 years of imprisonment and was disqualified from holding any government position.
Not only that, the three paintings was taken fro, her by the US Government and was in auction at Christie’s located in New York. Two of the three painting were sold for at about $2.6 million and $900,000. These paintings are, respectively, “L’église à Vétheuil” (1881) made by French impressionist Claude Monet; and “Langland Bay” (1897) by British landscape artist Alfred Sisley.
An article in PhilStar states that the L’église à Vétheuil was bought from Marlborough Fine Art in 1975 for $138,000 by Marcos. This was then entrusted to Vilma Bautista, her secretary, for safekeeping in 1985.
Langland Bay, on the other hand, was also bought from Marlborough for $82,000 at the same time. Its initial auction price was $1 million and was sold for $1.1 million.
The third painting is “Le Cypres de Djenan Sidi Said,” also known as “Algerian View”. This was made by French painter Albert Marquet. On Monday, the painting was auctioned off for an initial estimated price of $90,000.
As per the report, the paintings were discovered in two houses in New York after Bautista sold a Monet water lily painting to a London dealer in 2010 for $32 million. They are believed to be part of some 200 artworks collected by Imelda over the 20-year regime of her husband, the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
In 2013, their secretary Bautista was convicted in the US for illegally selling the 1899 Monet.
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