Thirteen works of art, including eight engravings by French artist Henri Matisse, were stolen this Sunday, December 7th, from the exhibition “From Book to Museum: MAM São Paulo and the Mário de Andrade Library,” held in partnership with the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM).
News reports said two armed men stole the works from the Mario de Andrade Library and also took five works by Brazilian artist Candido Portinari.
Authorities have yet to disclose the value of the stolen pieces, but said they were insured and that the library has video surveillance and a security system.
The Sao Paulo mayor’s office said in a statement that law enforcement were on scene gathering evidence at the library.
This is not the first major art theft in Brazil. In 2006, during a street festival in Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro, four armed men dressed as tourists overpowered two security guards at the Chácara do Céu Museum and made off with four masterpieces. Two men with connections to the drug trade, who were convicted for the theft, claimed the pieces had been shipped to Europe. The four paintings—among them Henri Matisse’s Luxembourg Gardens (Jardins du Luxembourg), 1901, an oil on canvas, valued at approximately US$40–50 million at the time—are still missing and listed on Interpol’s database over stolen art.
The Sunday art heist comes nearly two months after a group of thieves broke into the Louvre museum in Paris, stealing jewelry valued at around $100 million within a matter of minutes, and the day after protestors in London smeared the display case for the royal imperial crown with food, raising questions about the global adequacy of museum security measures.
