In the wonderful spirit of the season, León Gallery warmly welcomes art collectors, connoisseurs, and enthusiasts as it closes the year with gratitude and festivity at The Kingly Treasures Auction, happening this November 28 at 2 PM.
“2026 has brought us on a journey to our storied past and dynamic present, shining a light on the crucial role the Filipino artist plays in defining our Filipino identity—a complex yet vibrant oneness,” says Jaime L. Ponce de León, Director of León Gallery. “This Christmas, we continue to pay tribute to the Filipino artistic genius as we unveil our selection of lots that celebrate this most festive season.”
This year’s sale proudly unveils Fernando Zóbel’s Contratista (II), resurfaced after more than four decades since its last showing.
This piece is extraordinarily rare for three reasons. First, it comes from Zóbel’s elusive “Manila Period,” which lasted for only four years. Contratista encapsulates Zóbel’s rising fame and his prolific endeavors in the 1950s Philippine art scene. Though he was a relative newcomer, having only returned to the Philippines in 1952, the erudite Zóbel was a zealous promoter and scholar of Philippine art and culture.
Second, Contratista (II) is one of the last Zóbel figurative works before he would fully embrace abstraction in the following year after his fateful introduction to Mark Rothko’s lyrical abstract works in Massachusetts. Contratista (II) was one of 12 paintings exhibited in his second solo exhibition in 1954, held at the then-newly opened Contemporary Arts Gallery founded by artist Manuel Rodriguez Sr., and was among the show’s highlights.
Third, and most importantly, this painting is most probably the last of its kind to be auctioned off. The rarity of this series of paintings meant the pieces are either in institutional collections or in distinguished private collectors who cherish the works to easily part with it.
Another Zóbel, his La Raya, possesses a trifecta of sterling provenance. The painting originated at Galería Juana Mordó, one of Spain’s leading galleries in the second half of the 20th century. Founded by Juana Mordó, the gallery became a vanguard of Spanish abstraction during that time and the spiritual successor of the avant-garde legacy of Galería Fernando Fe in Puerta del Sol, Madrid. Mordó helped organize Zóbel’s debut solo exhibition in Spain, showcasing works from his Saeta and Serie Negra series. It was also the first time that the gallery mounted an exhibition of purely abstract works.
Years later, La Raya would eventually wind up in the possession of Ralph Augustus Graves, the last managing editor of the famous LIFE Magazine and a close friend of Zóbel in the late 1940s during their Harvard years. After his death, La Raya was passed down to his wife, Eleanor MacKenzie Graves, and then to her son from her first marriage, Alexander Parish.
Parish is himself an art connoisseur. A New York art dealer, he was best known for discovering and co-owing Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in 2005. It currently holds the record for the most expensive painting ever sold in an auction, as it sold for more than $450 million in a 2017 Christie’s sale, a far cry from its price of only $1,500 USD when Parish and his friend, Robert B. Simon, acquired the work at a St. Charles Gallery auction in New Orleans.
From the collection of Don Luis Ma. Araneta comes Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s Procession. The work is a unique family portrait of Anita as a young girl; with her are her granduncle—the shipping tycoon Don Teodoro Yangco, her grandmother Ramona Ferriols Corpus, and her mother, Doña Amalia Corpus Magsaysay.
Set sometime in the 1920s, Procession shows a young Anita and her family watching devoutly from the window of the splendid Paco home as the carroza of the Virgin Mary passes by. This bahay na bato of Anita’s girlhood was built and owned by Don Teodoro, the “Rockefeller of the Philippines,” whom she called “Lolo Doyong” and whose philanthropic virtues and efforts she always hoped to imbibe and emulate in her lifetime.
Her Nana, as she called her grandmother Doña Ramona, was also one of the first to encourage the young girl’s affinity for drawing. Anita recalls that her grandmother had noticed her love for drawing early in her childhood. She then suggested to Anita’s parents that the then-eight-year-old girl take drawing lessons.
Painted in the immediate aftermath of the devastating war, Procession is a glimpse into the beauty of the pre-war Paco, Manila, and the childhood that Anita looks back on with fondness.
Jose Joya’s award-winning masterpiece at the 1962 Art Association of the Philippines Art Competition and Exhibition, Day Ends, Night Starts, is emblematic of the artist’s non-objective art style. Inheriting the legacies of his seniors, H.R. Ocampo and Zóbel, he was already at the forefront of non-representational painting in 1961, the year of this piece’s painting, following his academic sojourn at the Cranbrook Academy of Art through a Smith-Mundth-Fulbright scholarship.
Eight months after the AAP competition, Day Ends, Night Starts was chosen to be one of the 29 paintings to represent the Philippines to a traveling exhibition in Australia from October to November of 1962.
This piece came from the J. Walter Thompson Company collection, a media titan and America’s flagship ad agency of the 20th century.
The works of newly declared National Artists for Visual Arts are also up for grabs in this auction. Nunelucio Alvarado’s Brown Envelope (Tagimata Eye-Sore Series) is a poignant example of the artist’s social realist roots, while Imelda Cajipe-Endaya, Visual Art category’s first woman National Artist, portrays her feminist leanings in her socially charged Pasiya Ko (My Choice).
From the Ossorio family collection comes eleven works by Alfonso Ossorio, recently resurfaced after more than five decades and have never been seen in the market until today. This collection includes the most complete study of Ossorio’s Victorias Chapel mural, The Angry Christ, as well as works from his Recovery Drawings series, including a 1990 one that the Ossorio family acknowledged as the artist’s last work.
This year-end auction also includes the collection of former Italian ambassador to the Philippines and art connoisseur Giorgio Guglielmino, which includes Jill Paz’s Untitled (After Hidalgo/ sketch for La Marina #2) and Costantino Zicarelli’s As an Ornament (Prelude).
Over the course of his four-decade career as a diplomat, Amb. Guglielmino is relentless and ever-passionate in his pursuit of art collecting and studying. A writer, an editor, and a notable expert on topics such as art collecting, he was also behind the organization and promotion of the landmark exhibition Arte Povera: Italian Landscape, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila in 2020.
In this season’s spirit of gratitude and gift-giving, León Gallery joins the Ateneo High School Batch 2001 in a special fundraising initiative. Through the generosity of alumni, art collectors, and supporters, several artworks from the best and the brightest of Philippine art are being offered for auction, all in the spirit of the Atenean tradition of Magis, or the constant pursuit of doing more for others.
Proceeds from the sale of works by Raffy Napay, Lao Lianben, Yeo Kaa, Nicole Coson, Juvenal Sanso, Onib Olmedo, and Ayka Go will benefit the Philippine Jesuit Prison Service, scholarships for the children of Ateneo support staff, the Ateneo Judo Team, and the scholars of the Ateneo Alumni Association.
Several historical lots are also up for sale in this auction.
Historical photographs provide tangible ephemera of time long past. Forty-two original albumen photographs of the Philippine Revolutionary Government and the Philippine-American War portray a photographic record of the pivotal years of the Philippines from 1898 to 1901, while albums containing photographs of Philippine Presidents and their First Ladies, from Emilio Aguinaldo to Joseph Estrada, show a valuable archive of 20th-century Philippine governance.
A newly discovered copy of the Malolos Constitution with rare copies of President Aguinaldo’s Foundational Decrees is also up for bids. Accounting for 40 additional pages, this particular copy was nearly twice the page count of the original edition. These additional pages reflect the inclusion of Aguinaldo’s early decrees, printed through a clandestine press that was not named for security purposes.
This copy is the only one known to exist — none are in the government collection at the National Library of the Philippines.
“We invite you to join us once again as we bring this prolific year to a close,” continues Mr. Ponce de Leon. “On behalf of Team León Gallery, we look forward to seeing you in 2027 for another quest for culturally and historically significant treasures that bridge the past and present and prime us for an exciting future”
León Gallery’s The Kingly Treasures Auction 2026 will be held on Saturday, 28 November 2026, at 2 PM. The preview exhibit will run from 21 November to 27 November, from 9 AM to 7 PM, at G/F Eurovilla 1, Rufino corner Legazpi Streets, Legazpi Village, Makati City.
To browse the online catalog, visit https://leon-gallery.com/. For further inquiries, email info@leon-gallery.com or contact 8856 2781.
—written by Hannah Andrea Valiente
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