Three Take Paintings Worth Millions

Armed with nothing but a crow bar and a car jack, it took thieves just three minutes to steal paintings by Pablo Picasso and Candido Portinari, worth millions of dollars, from Brazil’s premier modern art museum.

Authorities said they hit the Sao Paulo Museum of Art just before dawn Thursday. Security camera images show three men going in at 5:09 a.m., smashing through two glass doors and grabbing the two paintings. The alarm never rang, and by 5:12 a.m. they were making their escape.

– Stan Lehman, The Associated Press

stolen works

The thieves took Picasso’s “Portrait of Suzanne Bloch,” painted in 1904 during his Blue Period, and “O Lavrador de Cafe” by Portinari, a major Brazilian artist.

“It was a professional job. It was something they studied because the paintings were in different rooms,” said the lead police investigator, Marcos Gomes de Moura. estimated prices

“The prices paid for such works would be incalculable, enough to give you vertigo,” said curator Miriam Alzuri of the Bellas Artes Museum of Bilbao, Spain.

Jones Bergamin, a Sao Paulo gallery director, estimated the Picasso at about $50 million and the Portinari at $5 million to $6 million.

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