The Spoliarium by Filipino painter Juan Luna is probably the most famous painting in the Philippines.
Luna, working on canvas, spent eight months completing the painting which depicts dying gladiators. The painting was submitted by Luna to the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1884 in Madrid, where it garnered the first gold medal. The picture recreates a despoiling scene in a Roman circus where dead gladiators are stripped of weapons and garments.
It currently hangs in the main gallery on the first floor of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Manila and is the first major work of art that greets visitors upon entry into the museum. It is considered the largest painting in the Philippines with dimensions of 4.22 meters x 7.675 meters.
In 1885, the painting was bought by the provincial government of Barcelona for 20,000 pesetas, after being exhibited in Rome, Madrid, and Paris. It was transferred to the Museo del Arte Moderno in Barcelona in 1887, where it was in storage until the museum was burned and looted during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Under orders of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the damaged painting was sent to Madrid for restoration, where it stayed for 18 years. The calls for the painting’s transfer to Manila by Filipinos and sympathetic Spaniards in the 1950s led to Gen. Franco’s orders to finish the painting’s restoration and eventual donation to the Philippines.
The painting was turned over to Ambassador Nieto in January 1958 after the restoration work was done in late 1957 and was shipped back to the country as a gift of Spain to the Philippines.
Reference: National Museum of Fine Arts, Wikipedia
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