A Good Week for Recovering Stolen Art

There are many uneventful weeks in the art theft realm. And then there are weeks like the last.

How often do we see two separate thefts of works by Matisse resolved on virtually the same day on two different continents, with a Cézanne and Renoir thrown in for good measure?

In Italy, the Carabinieri—arguably the best art recovery unit in the world—tracked down the three works stolen in a daring overnight heist this past March from the Magnani Rocca Foundation in Parma. In that caper, thieves took Cézanne’s “Tasse et Plat de Cerises” (Cup and Plate of Cherries), a watercolor valued at $7 million; Renoir’s “Les Poissons” (The Fish), an oil painting valued at $3.5 million; and Matisse’s “Odalisque sur la Terrasse,” an etching valued at $23,000.

Members of a Moldovan criminal gang have been detained in the theft. It’s not yet clear where the gang was residing at the time, but the works did not travel far and never left the city from which they were stolen. Video of the 3-minute heist can be seen here courtesy of Corriere della Sera.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, police announced the recovery of eight illustrations by Henri Matisse. The colorful prints, valued at over $193,000, belong to Matisse’s famous limited-edition 1947 art book, Jazz.

Five works stolen along with the Matisse prints have not yet been recovered. The works, by Brazilian painter Candido Portinari, are still being sought by police.

The works were stolen during a daytime raid last December from the Mario de Andrade Library in São Paulo. Though missing nine months, the Matisse works never left São Paulo.

Much remains to be learned about the two heists and their respective aftermaths, but what we do know seems to fit the profile I’ve been writing about for years. For example:

1. The Parma heist took three minutes, which is at the quicker end of the three-to-nine-minute range I’ve cited here so many times.

2. The São Paulo heist also took just a handful of minutes, as the criminals used the smash-and-grab method.

3. In both cases, those who took the art were unable to unload works by big-name artists after the heists received a large amount of media coverage.

4. As described above, the art didn’t travel far and, in fact, remained in the very city from which it was stolen.

5. The Italian gang was not the Mafia. Both groups of thieves appear to have been members of local gangs, not large-scale organized crime outfits.

6. The works in Parma were simply hidden in a cardboard box that once held a flat-screen television. The box was in a hallway closet. Hardly the Hollywood version of a hiding spot but effective nonetheless—for five months, that is.

One departure from the norm is the man being called the “mastermind” of the São Paulo heist. 53-year-old Laéssio Rodrigues de Oliveira is said to have long been involved in stealing from libraries. However, it should be noted that the works were part of a well-publicized exhibition, so it didn’t take much to know that the valuable items were on display. And the M.O. of the crime—two thieves brandishing guns in a library just after opening—isn’t exactly something out of Agatha Christie.

But wait…there’s more!

Also last week, a Milwaukee landlord cleaning out an evicted tenant’s apartment found Picasso’s stolen Torero. The framed work was then turned over to the Milwaukee police. Ownership details are still being ironed out, but the piece has been authenticated. It was taken by a thief from DeLind Fine Art Appraisals in Milwaukee eight-and-a-half years ago.

Once again, purloined art by a well-known artist is recovered in the same city where it had been taken.