Who deserves millions in art seized from Marcos regime?
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NEW YORK — A multimillion-dollar trove of seized Impressionist art believed to have been owned by the regime of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos has sat for five years in a climate-controlled Brooklyn warehouse, the subject of a bitter legal fight.
At issue is whether the 50 works — which include an 1881 painting by Claude Monet — should go to thousands of victims of the now-dead dictator, to the current Philippine government or to the personal secretary to Imelda Marcos, who contends she was rightfully given some of the art as gifts.
“It’s a question of who is the owner and who is entitled,” said Robert Swift, a human rights attorney representing nearly 10,000 victims of the Marcos regime who in 2011 won a judgment against Marcos, his estate and Imelda, his wife.
Of particular interest in the long-running, multi-jurisdictional case is an 1899 Monet from the “Water Lilies” series called “Le Bassin aux Nymphéas,” that the secretary, Vilma Bautista, sold in 2010 for $32 million. The other highly disputed items are three other prominent paintings still locked away in storage — an 1897 Alfred Sisley painting called “Langland Bay”; Monet’s 1881 “L’Eglise et La Seine a Vetheuil”; and Albert Marquet’s 1946 “Le Cyprès de Djenan Sidi Saïd.”
