AMORSOLO PAINTING STOLEN FROM THE HOFILEñA MUSEUM IN BACOLOD CITY

The art world is reeling from the news that Fernando Amorsolo’s 1936 painting "Mango Harvesters" was reported stolen from the Hofileña Museum in Bacolod City. The museum is open to the public, one of the heritage houses in Silay that offers tourists a glimpse of the genteel lives of Bacolod’s hacienderos. The painting, an early work by the country’s first National Artist, is valued at "several million pesos."

According to news reports, the painting was believed to have been stolen from the museum on Wednesday, July 3, at around 10:50 am. The male and female suspects entered the museum under the guise of visitors. Taking advantage of the situation that the establishment was understaffed on that day, the male suspect took the Amorsolo oil painting that was hanging on the wall of the museum’s second floor, put it in his bag, and hurried out.   

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A legacy of art

The Hofileña Mansion in Silay is a cultural landmark of Bacolod. According to Solomon Lopez Locsin, chairman of the Negros Occidental Historical Council, the Hofileña Museum tour claims to be one of the longest-running cultural tours in the world, as it has been running nonstop for the last four decades, particularly under the watch of beloved local icon and avid art collector Ramon ‘Mon’ Hofileña, who passed away in July 2021.

Negrense artist Tey Ivhonie Maravilla Sevelino, a frequent visitor to the Hofileña home, says that aside from the Amorsolo, the art collections on display include a drawing by National Hero Dr. Jose Rizal, paintings by Juan Luna, Felix Resurrecion Hidalgo, and Benedicto ‘BenCab’ Cabrera. "Artworks by Victor Manansala even have written dedications from the artist because they were good friends," she says.

The community takes the theft of the Amorsolo painting personally. Thomas J. Ledesma, Vice Mayor of Silay City, released a statement to Esquire saying, "This unfortunate incident will surely have a huge impact to the City of Silay because this house is under our Heritage Area Zone and it needs to be investigated thoroughly and we in the local government of Silay will see to it that we get to the bottom this incident so as to prevent this  from happening to any of our local museums. Silay has been known for conservation of culture, arts and heritage and it certainly hurts us when mindless individuals commit this crime. It is an insult to the dedication of local artist Mr. Ramon Hofileña, who personally collected art from the Filipino renowned Art Masters to share with his fellow Silaynons and Negrenses. That is why this has become personal to us."

Locsin adds, "The public outcry was really for Mon Hofileña, not for a lost painting. He opened his ancestral home to the public as early as 1962—way before tours or museums were norm in Negros Island. What he really built for Silay, the painting is just the piece of a bigger dream of Mon. Now that piece is missing. It’s like losing a piece of your identity, from a town’s collective memory and pride."

The family and the community are asking the public for leads that can help to locate and retrieve the stolen painting.

Other Amorsolo theft incidents

This was not the first time Fernando Amorsolo’s work attracted art thieves. The family of the late statesman and former permanent UN Representative Carlos P. Romulo are still searching for an Amorsolo painting of General Douglas MacArthur’s Leyte Landing that was borrowed by the former First Lady Imelda Marcos for a Filipiniana exhibit in Bloomingdales New York in 1982 titled "The Philippines, Land of Friends." The painting went missing after it was returned by Bloomingdale’s to the Philippine Tourism Office.

In August 2001, four unidentified armed men robbed an art gallery in Quezon City and carted away two Amorsolo paintings that were worth about P3 million at the time. Owner Fe Esteruna de Pio claimed that he was hogtied and gagged by robbers, one of whom was said to have previously visited the art gallery a month before and pretended to be an art buyer who looked at the work of famous painters but left the store without buying anything.

There was also an incident that happened abroad. In February 2013, US publication The Almanac released a story about an Amorsolo painting that went missing from an Atherton home in California. The Atherton Police Department said that the painting, thought to be worth more than $100,000 at the time, was believed stolen sometime in May or June of 2012. The painting was said to be of "women planting in a rice paddy and their reflections coming off the water, with a water buffalo and a farmhouse in the background." According to a web search, an Amorsolo painting matching the description sold for $48,338 at an auction at Christie’s in Hong Kong in November 2011. What is interesting is that a painting fitting the same description was put on exhibit on June 2016 at a gallery in Intramuros Manila, but the painting on display was said to have been acquired in 1935 by sculptor Anastacio Caedo and bought by a private collector.

There was a happy ending for another Amorsolo work that disappeared. The artist’s mural-sized painting of Jesus Christ facing eight people of different races and religions—a Hindu male, a Japanese woman wearing a kimono, a man from the Middle East, Filipinos from different ethnic groups, and a uniformed nurse—was stolen from the lobby of the Baguio General Hospital on May 21, 1998. Baguio-based journalist Frank Cimatu reported in an article published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer that it was returned by the late Manoling Morato, former MTRCB and PCSO Chair, 41 days later after purchasing it for half a million pesos from a trader in Davao, who was offering P1.5 million for it. Morato was present at the formal unveiling of the returned art piece, titled "Our Blessed Lord and Some of His Children."

2024-07-06T08:15:51Z dg43tfdfdgfd