National Museum of Fine Arts

The National Museum of Fine Arts in Manila showcases a vast collection of Filipino artworks, including masterpieces by Juan Luna and Félix Resurrección Hidalgo.

Planning your visit

The National Museum of Fine Arts occupies the former Legislative Building in Manila, and its central hall holds the painting that defines Philippine art history. Juan Luna's Spoliarium, an enormous 1884 canvas showing dead gladiators dragged from a Roman arena, won gold at the Madrid exposition and was read by Filipino nationalists — José Rizal among them — as an allegory of colonial subjugation. It hangs opposite Félix Resurrección Hidalgo's Las Virgenes Cristianas, which won silver at the same show.

The rest of the collection traces Philippine art from the colonial religious painting of the Spanish period through the nineteenth-century academics, the American colonial era, and the National Artists of the twentieth century.

Admission is free, and the museum sits alongside the National Museum of Anthropology and Natural History in the same complex near Rizal Park.

The building itself, damaged in the 1945 Battle of Manila and rebuilt, is part of the history. Allow two hours. Bookable options include guided tours. Current availability is shown below.