Missing Picasso spotted at home of former Philippines first lady

A lacking Pablo Picasso portray was noticed on the residence of Philippines’ controversial former first girl — as she celebrated her son’s presidential victory, in accordance with a former official conversant in the art work.

Imelda Marcos — the spouse of late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos — was filmed hugging her son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., in footage that aired this week with the obvious long-lost masterpiece “Reclining Woman VI” hanging on a wall behind them.

The bombshell within the background was broadcast in a news segment by the native station TV Patrol Tuesday after Marcos Jr. turned the nation’s subsequent president in a landslide victory.

A former official for the nation’s Presidential Commission on Good Government — a process drive created to get well the one-time authoritarian household’s ill-gotten wealth — said the painting was considered one of roughly 160 items of artwork allegedly acquired illegally by the Marcos household throughout their greater than 20-year reign.

The summary portray — which depicts a lady lounging on a sofa with a hand on her brow — appeared in a 2019 documentary in regards to the Marcos household, “The Kingmaker” earlier than it went lacking as the duty drive hunted for it, stated former PCGG chairman Andy Bautista.

“This portray was additionally captured in #TheKingmaker,” Bautista, who appeared within the documentary, tweeted.

It wasn’t instantly confirmed that the portray — considered one of eight focused for seizure by the nation’s anti-corruption authorities in 2014 — was genuine.

But in documentary, the previous first girl flaunted the portray, together with different uncommon antiquities and artworks in her assortment. 

“[My husband] would say, ‘Imelda, I understand how to earn cash correctly, however you know the way to spend cash correctly since you purchase magnificence,’” she says in documentary — because the digicam pans to the Picasso piece.

In the movie, Bautista then reveals that the PCGG had filed a movement to grab the Picasso portray and different property.

During his rule from 1965 to 1986, Marcos Sr. made gorgeous human-rights abuses, together with the arrest, torture and killing of his opponent, and utilizing his energy to grab as a lot as $10 billion in ill-gotten wealth. 

Much of that wealth, together with thousands and thousands of {dollars} value of artwork, has nonetheless not been recovered.