León Gallery’s The Magnificent September Auction 2026, held Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026, yielded strong sale of masterworks put on the block by the country’s trusted auction house.
The highlights are those of three titans of Philippine modernism whose works are gaining stronger acceptance on the global art scene. They are Anita Magsaysay-Ho, whose triumphant participation at the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2024 titled Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, was 60 years ago since the country’s first participation in the world’s most important art biennale; Fernando Zóbel and his 2022 landmark retrospective at Madrid’s Prado Museum, The Future of the Past, and in the museum he founded, the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español in his beloved city of Cuenca, Spain; and Alfonso Ossorio, whose works left an impact on the American abstract expressionist landscape, along with those of his close friend, Jackson Pollock.
Fernando Zóbel (1924–1984), ‘Saeta 82–Filadelfia (Blanco sobre gris),’ signed (lower right), dated 1958, oil on canvas, 24″ x 36″ (61 cm x 91 cm) sold P31,241,600
Fernando Zóbel’s Saeta 82 – Filadelfia, the artist’s rarest Saeta painting, went for P31,241,600. Aside from its rarity (this is the only Saeta that Zóbel painted in America; all others were painted in the Philippines and Spain), the demand for the painting arose from the fact that it was a token of friendship and enduring brotherhood between Zóbel and the Philadelphia-born artist Carl L. Steele. The two first met in the early 1950s in the Philippines, a most exciting time of creative experimentation and artistic vigor amid the ruins of post-war Manila.
Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 – 2012) ‘Two Women in Brown’
gold enamel and tempera
• 22 1/2″ x 17 1/2″ (57 cm x 44 cm)
• SOLD: P24,032,200
Another noteworthy painting by Zóbel, El Recreo III – Estudio, from his final years, was sold for P26,435,200.
Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s Two Women in Brown was her last tempera painting from her prolific “Golden Period” of the 1950s to the early 1960s and one of her last paintings in the Philippines before she became an expatriate Filipina for the next four decades. It sold for P24,032,200. Seated Male (Face in Torso), Alfonso Ossorio’s favorite painting that he himself had framed and hung in his bedroom, in his ‘The Creeks’ estate at East Hampton, fetched P4,806,400.
The prized collection of the late Kit Ongpin-Roxas, considered the “Principal Doyenne of Manila’s Art and Antiques World,” fared well. Her late 19th-century Calvario tableaux, among the very few documented and surviving ivory Calvary tableaus with solid gold accessories, went for P6,608,800, more than four times above its starting price. Kit’s pair of Garuda earrings from the 10th to 13th centuries, noted for their rarity, sold for P2,403,200, while her pair of Filipino pre-colonial gold earrings fetched P1,441,920.
The Roxas Calvario
last quarter of the nineteenth century (1875–1900)
(Crucifixion scene with Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin
Mary, Saint John the Evangelist, and Saint Mary Magdalene)
Ivory, kamagong wood (“Diospyros discolor”/“Diospyros
blancoi”), 14 K gold (or higher)
with virina:
H: 28″ (71 cm)
L: 19 1/2″ (50 cm)
W: 12″ (30 cm)
without virina:
H: 26 1/4″ (67 cm)
L: 19 1/2″ (50 cm)
W: 12″ (30 cm)
corpus:
H: 8 3/4″ (22 cm)
L: 5″ (13 cm)
W: 1 1/4″ (3 cm)
P 1,600,000
PROVENANCE
Binondo, Manila
Ex Coll: the private collection of the famous art and antiques dealer
+Maria Cristina Consing Ongpin–Roxas (“Tawalisi Art and Antiques”);
it was kept in Mrs Roxas’ bedroom; acquired directly from an old Baliuag,
Bulacan family. Sold for P6,608,800
Chelsea Theodossis’s One Fine Day 2 set a record-breaking price of P5,767,680, significantly surpassing the P2.8 million she previously set at León Gallery’s The Spectacular Mid-Year Auction last June 13. Edwin Wilwayco’s Rite of Spring, which gallery director Jaime Ponce de Leon dubbed the artist’s most important painting to enter the market, also set a new sale record for the artist, at stunning P2,042,720.
Chelsea Theodossis (b. 1991) “One Fine Day 2”
• signed and dated 2022 (lower right)
• oil on canvas
• 48″ x 36″ (122 cm x 91 cm)
Sold for P5,767,680
Artworks sold for the benefit of MovEd (Molding Optimism and Values Thru Education) achieved impressive results, led by Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s Women with Christmas Parols and Women with Flowers, which brought in P2,162,880 and P2,643,520, respectively. The sale will support MovEd’s aim of providing early childhood education and development programs to children and their families in underserved communities.
The Gen. Antonio Luna Epaulets
designed by Juan Luna
c. 1899
epaulets: fine silk embroidered with gilt thread and
metal appliqués, on board
5” x 2” (13 cm x 5 cm) (each)
With The Gen. Antonio Luna Cockade
c. 1899
Silk crochet with triangular metal emblem of the First
Philippine Republic, on board
diameter: 2 1/4 (6 cm)
Accompanied by the never-before-seen personal
typewritten account of the last morning of Gen.
Antonio Luna, signed by his friend and fellow journalist,
Florentina Arellano de Nable.
Two sheets of paper
11” x 8 1/4” (28 cm x 21 cm)
P 1,000,000
PROVENANCE
Doña Florentina Arellano, married to Don Mariano Nable, received from
Gen. Luna in Dagupan on the day of his death, June 5, 1899.
LITERATURE
Photograph of Luna’s designs featured in Felice Prudente Sta. Maria,
Visions of the Possible: Legacies of Philippine Freedom, 1998 (Studio 5
Publishing, Makati), 246-247. Sold for P2,883,840
Historical artifacts also were in good demand. The Epaulets of General Antonio Luna, designed by his brother Juan Luna, and his Cockade went for P2,883,840. Dr. Jose Rizal’s Hand-painted Ivory and Bone Chess Set, which he made during his Dapitan exile, brought in P7,810,400. The chess set has found its new home at the National Museum of the Philippines, which exercised its legal right of first refusal pursuant to Section 23 of Republic Act No. 11333. Rizal’s chess set joins his plaster of Paris sculpture, Josephine Sleeping, which the National Museum acquired at León Gallery’s The Kingly Treasures Auction in November 2024, invoking the same legal rights and giving the Filipino public a better chance to deeply appreciate and understand Rizal’s artistic genius.
León Gallery also broke its own record for the most expensive Philippine photograph, with Manuel Arias y Rodriguez’s historic snapshot of Rizal’s martyrdom at the Luneta bringing in P841,120, more than 8 times its starting price of P100,000.
