After the Louvre robbery, 8 works by Matisse were stolen from a well-known Brazilian library (in broad daylight)

A daring coup has deprived the Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo of valuable works of art. Two criminals took away eight works by the French master Henri Matisse and five prints by the Brazilian painter Candido Portinari during the exhibition “From the book to the museum”, which celebrated great names of modern art such as Matisse, Portinari and Fernand Léger.

The attack occurred in broad daylight, while the library was open to the public. The robbers intimidated a security guard and a couple of elderly visitors before fleeing towards the Anhangabaú subway. The police arrested one of the perpetrators on December 8, while the search for his accomplice continues.

Among the stolen pieces are some pages of “Jazz”, the famous volume in which Matisse collected his iconic collages of colored papers accompanied by personal meditations on artistic expression and existence. Five engravings created by Portinari to embellish a special edition of “Menino de engenho”, a classic novel by the Brazilian writer José Lins do Rego which tells of life on the sugar cane plantations, have also disappeared.

The vulnerability of cultural institutions

This episode is part of a worrying trend that has affected places of culture. Just a few months earlier, in October, criminals disguised as workers in high-visibility jackets had attacked the Louvre using a truck with a telescopic ladder. That robbery highlighted a disturbing phenomenon: the thefts increasingly target not so much pictorial masterpieces as objects that can be dismantled and resold as raw material.