Eight Stolen Matisse Works Recovered in São Paulo, Five Portinari Prints Still Missing
Eight works by Henri Matisse stolen at gunpoint from a São Paulo library in December 2025 have been recovered by Brazilian police and returned to the institution. Five prints by Brazilian modernist Candido Portinari taken in the same heist remain missing.
Police found the Matisse works on 13 August in an apartment in São Bernardo do Campo, in the São Paulo metropolitan area, along with a firearm. A man was arrested at the apartment on suspicion of storing the works for the alleged mastermind of the heist. The São Paulo State Public Security Secretariat said police suspect the missing Portinari prints may already have been sold. The five missing works are engravings, BBC News reported on 14 August.
The recovered Matisse works — Le clown, Le cirque, Monsieur Loyal, Cauchemar de l'éléphant blanc, Les codomas, La nageuse dans l'aquarium, L'avaleur de sabres and Le cowboy — come from the artist's 1947 book Jazz, a landmark of twentieth-century printmaking. The Jazz volume belonged to the rare books collection of the Mário de Andrade Library, Brazil's second-largest public library, which holds around 1.38 million items and marked its centenary in 2025. The eight prints are valued at more than US$190,000.
The robbery took place on 7 December 2025, the final day of a temporary exhibition titled 'Do livro ao museu: MAM São Paulo e a Biblioteca Mário de Andrade', organised with the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. Two armed men entered the library, overpowered a security guard and a couple visiting the exhibition, placed 13 works in a canvas bag and fled through the main entrance. Security footage helped police trace the escape route and led to a first arrest the day after the robbery.
In April, federal police in Rio de Janeiro arrested two key suspects in a separate art-theft investigation. One was identified as the alleged mastermind of the library heist. A month later, police carried out 11 raids across São Paulo, São Bernardo do Campo, Diadema and Rio de Janeiro, targeting properties linked to suspects and businesses connected to art auctions and sales.
According to a police statement, the group operated in a structured way — with advance planning and a division of tasks to steal, handle and place cultural property on the illicit art market. The exhibition from which the works were stolen was curated by Cauê Alves, chief curator of MAM São Paulo, and Pedro Nery. After the theft, the city tightened security at the library.
The eight Matisse prints are now back in the library's collection. The five Portinari engravings are not.
