Spoliarium

The Spoliarium is a painting by Filipino painter Juan Luna. The painting was submitted by Luna to the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1884 in Madrid, where it garnered the first gold medal. In 1886, it was sold to the Diputación Provincial de Barcelona for 20,000 pesetas. It currently hangs in the main gallery at the first floor of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Manila, and is the first work of art that greets visitors upon entry into the museum. The picture recreates a despoiling scene in a Roman circus where dead gladiators are stripped of weapons and garments.

Luna, working on canvas, spent eight months completing the painting which depicts dying gladiators. Filipino historian Ambeth Ocampo writes, "...the fact remains that when Luna and Félix Resurrección Hidalgo won the top awards in the Madrid Exposition of 1884, they proved to the world that indios could, despite their supposed barbarian race, paint better than the Spaniards who colonized them."