Paintings from Marcos art collection seized in San Juan raid

This file photo taken on June 7, 2007 shows former first lady Imelda Marcos is seen in her apartment in Manila with a gallery of paintings including a Picasso, seen at upper right. Philippine authorities moved on September 30, 2014 to seize paintings by Picasso, Gauguin, Miro, Michelangelo and other masters held by Imelda Marcos after getting a court order against the former first lady. AFP/ROMEO GACAD

MANILA, Philippines–Authorities said they seized paintings Tuesday from a property of former first lady Imelda Marcos as part of efforts to recover works by Picasso, Gauguin, Miro, Michelangelo and others.

The raid came a day after a special court ruled that eight paintings owned by the widow of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos had been acquired with embezzled state funds and must be turned over to the government.

Police and state lawyers raided the Marcos home in Manila’s San Juan district on Tuesday to enforce the court ruling, said Nick Suarez, spokesman for the Presidential Commission on Good Government, the body pursuing the Marcoses’ allegedly ill-gotten wealth.

“Paintings were seized, but we have yet to determine which ones or how many,” he said.

The court also ordered authorities to search the other homes and offices of Marcos, 85, an elected member of the House of Representatives.

The court ruling covered Pablo Picasso’s “Femme Couchee VI (Reclining Woman VI),” Michelangelo’s “Madonna and Child,” and a still life by Paul Gauguin.

The others are a Francisco de Goya portrait of the Marquesa de Santa Cruz, Pierre Bonnard’s “La Baignade Au Grand Temps,” Bernard Buffet’s “Vase of Red Chrysanthemums,” Joan Miro’s “L’Aube,” and one of Camille Pissarro’s “Jardin de Kew” series.

Suarez said he did not have estimates of the current value of the artworks.

Imelda Marcos, a keen art collector, will appeal the court ruling on the eight paintings, said her lawyer Robert Sison.

“The order is highly questionable. We will question that order,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Sison described the ruling as illegal since the paintings were not included in a forfeiture case that the government had earlier filed against the Marcoses.

The Supreme Court ruled in the government’s favor on the forfeiture in 2003, a case that included $658 million in Swiss bank deposits.

The government alleges the Marcos family plundered an estimated $10 billion from the nation’s coffers before a military-backed “People’s Power” revolt in 1986 forced them into exile in Hawaii, where the dictator died three years later.