Overview
- Police say one of two identified suspects was detained after investigators reviewed surveillance video, but none of the artworks has been recovered.
- The city’s Smart Sampa camera network helped trace the escape route, and the getaway vehicle was found and sent for forensic examination.
- The haul included eight Henri Matisse collages, with pieces from the rare Jazz album, and five Cândido Portinari illustrations from Menino de Engenho.
- The armed pair overpowered an unarmed guard and an elderly couple during visiting hours at the Biblioteca Mário de Andrade on the show’s final day, then walked out the main door.
- Officials declined to estimate a market value, calling the pieces culturally incalculable, and the exhibit was a collaboration with São Paulo’s Museum of Modern Art, with the library’s Matisse Jazz prints having a prior theft-and-recovery history.