Picasso Painting Stolen in Brazil


Ignoring works by Matisse, Renoir and Van Gogh, thieves homed in on just two paintings -- one by Pablo Picasso and another by Candido Portinari -- in the first successful heist in the 60-year history of Brazil's premier modern art museum.

Armed with nothing more than a crow bar and a car jack, it took the culprits just three minutes to break into the Sao Paulo Museum of Art before dawn Thursday and steal Picasso's ''Portrait of Suzanne Bloch,'' and Portinari's ''O Lavrador de Cafe.''

Picasso painted the portrait in 1904 during his Blue Period and it is among the most valuable pieces in the museum's collection. Jones Bergamin, a Sao Paulo gallery director, estimated the painting's price at about $50 million.

''It seems obvious it was a made-to-order theft because they went straight to those two paintings and nothing else,'' said the lead police investigator, Marcos Gomes de Moura. ''Everything indicates they were sent to do it by some crazy, wealthy art lover for his own collection -- someone who, although wealthy, was not rich enough to buy the paintings.''

(Via NYT)

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