MANILA: Philippine authorities moved Tuesday 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.

Police and lawyers will search the homes and offices of the widow of dictator Ferdinand Marcos after a court awarded the artworks to the government, said a state body pursuing the Marcoses’ allegedly ill-gotten wealth.

“The paintings will be retrieved starting today” after the court ruled on Monday they had been purchased with funds embezzled from the government, the state body’s spokesman Nick Suarez said.

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

Imelda Marcos, 85, who is a keen art collector, will appeal the court ruling, said her lawyer Robert Sison.

“The order is highly questionable. We will question that order,” he said. Sison described the court ruling on the eight paintings as “illegal” since they were not included in a forfeiture case that the government had earlier filed against the Marcoses.

Published in Dawn, October 1st , 2014