Police in Brazil have identified one suspect behind the theft of eight Henri Matisse engravings from a Sao Paulo library and found the robbers’ getaway car, authorities announced Monday. A pair of gunmen stole the late French master’s works, as well as five pieces by the Brazilian painter Candido Portinari, from a library in the centre of Brazilian mega-city on Sunday. Sao Paulo’s security department said investigations were ongoing to identify the second suspect. “The escape vehicle was also located,” the security department said in a statement. Police say the thieves held up a security guard and an elderly couple visiting the Mario de Andrade Library, grabbed the engravings and other items from a glass dome where they were kept, and fled through the main exit. The art heist comes nearly two months after a group of thieves broke into the Louvre museum in Paris, stealing jewelry valued at around US$100 million within a matter of minutes. Authorities have yet to disclose the value of the pieces stolen in Sao Paulo, which were part of a modern art exhibition entitled “From the Book to the Museum” highlighting a collaboration between the library and the Museum of Modern Art of Sao Paulo.
