# Eight Matisse engravings stolen from Sao Paulo library in armed daytime heist
Eight engravings by Henri Matisse were stolen from the Mario de Andrade Library in Sao Paulo on the event date, in an armed robbery that also left Brazilian authorities searching for five works by Candido Portinari reportedly taken in the same raid.
The theft hit a modern art exhibition at one of the city’s main cultural institutions and unfolded inside a library that had been hosting the show “From the Book to the Museum.” According to AFP via France 24, the display was organized around a collaboration between the library and the Museum of Modern Art of Sao Paulo. The library’s own security systems and police response are now part of the investigation.
Police said two armed men entered the library and threatened a security guard and an elderly couple visiting the premises. The pair then moved into the glass dome where the documents were kept, placed the items in a canvas bag and fled through the main exit. The Sao Paulo mayor’s office said law enforcement was already on scene gathering evidence at the library, which is equipped with security cameras.
Authorities have not disclosed the value of the stolen works. The news agency report said the art taken included eight engravings by Matisse and that local reporting also identified five works by Portinari among the missing pieces. Folha de Sao Paulo said the Matisse material included collages printed in the artist’s 1947 book “Jazz,” though that detail was attributed to local reporting rather than an official inventory released in the packet.
The heist is notable not only for the artists involved but for the setting. Libraries and museums are usually thought of as lower-risk targets than major galleries or private collections, yet the raid appears to have exploited a public exhibition environment rather than a highly restricted vault. That makes the robbery a warning to cultural institutions that security can be tested even in venues that are not traditionally treated as high-value art markets.
The theft also lands at a time when attention to art security has been heightened by other headline-grabbing museum crimes. France 24 noted that it came nearly two months after thieves broke into the Louvre and stole jewelry valued at around $100 million. While the Sao Paulo robbery is a different kind of case, the comparison underscores how quickly high-profile cultural objects can be removed when guards and infrastructure are breached.
Brazilian police have not said whether they have identified the suspects or recovered any of the missing pieces. For now, the museum and library world is left with one more reminder that works on paper, even when not unique in the way a painting might be, can still be treated by thieves as portable cultural assets with a ready market or exchange value.
