The Second Chácara do Céu Museum Art Theft: Two Dalí Balconies

Summary: Latin America no longer shows Dalí publicly since a painting of two Dalí balconies is one of five second Chácara do Céu Museum art theft casualties.

Salvador Dalí's Two Balconies (Portuguese: Os Dois Balcões), 1929 oil on wood stolen during Chácara do Céu Museum 2006 art theft: Federal Bureau of Investigation Art Crime Team, Public Domain, via FBI

The second Chácara do Céu Museum art theft Feb. 24, 2006, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, attains priority status on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) top 10 unsolved art crimes list.

The second Chácara robbery bears a nickname as Latin America's equivalent of North America's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art theft March 18, 1990, in Boston, Massachusetts. The second Chácara and the second Gardner Museum art crimes called up somewhat similar motives and opportunities and concern millions of dollars in objects and works. They respectively dragged away Latin America's only Salvador Dalí (May 11, 1904-Jan. 23, 1989) masterpiece and Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn's (July 15, 1606-Oct. 4, 1669) only seascape.

Absence of Dalí masterpieces from all other Latin American public collections elicited Two Balconies' exile and recovery in May 1989 and exile and mystery since 2006.

Costumes, masks and wigs as four followers of the Carmelite block (bloco das Carmelitas) for Carnival celebrations furnished the pretext for finding time for neighborhood art.

Staff, unarmed security guards gathered together from a private firm and visitors give 4 p.m. Brasília Time (7 p.m. Coordinated Universal Time) for unforced museum entries. The museum had no motion detection or surveillance footage records because of the quartet herding everyone into the staff office that has alarm and camera systems. Disconnected security systems and unrevealing Carnival costumes indicated nothing distinctive about four armed robbers with a driver and a navigator in a nondescript, parked getaway van.

The second Chácara do Céu Museum art theft jeopardizes the well-being of a book on bulls and of paintings respectively about balconies, dances, gardens and seascapes.

Chácara do Céu Museum's 2006 art theft played out amid Carnival's Carmelite Block celebrations; Rio de Janeiro's Carmelite Convent (Convento do Carmo) is the namesake of the Santa Teresa neighborhood's Carmelite Block during Carnival celebrations; 2007 view of Carmelite Convent: Fulviusbsas, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The hilltop mansion-like museum keeps Brazilian and  European artworks on three custom-furnished levels and 8,000-plus books in its library in Rio's Santa Teresa (Saint Teresa) neighborhood.

The armed intervention led to mugged, robbed guards, staff and visitors and left no indication of the grenade- and gun-laden quartet looking into any third-level holdings. One staff-person, three guards and five tourists mentioned one of the quartet mounting furniture to mangle, with a knife, the nylon wires maintaining one painting's place. They noted the quartet nabbing, in just 30 minutes, one illustrated book, Impressionist, post-Impressionist and modern artworks and Latin America's only Spanish realist on public display.

Newspaper coverage obtained, after the Chácara do Céu Museum art theft, observations from a private curator, an investigator, an Ipanema-based gallery owner-operator and the museum director.

Christina Penna postulated, "This is a museum with plenty of things in it, and they went past everything else and went straight for what they wanted."

Dueller Rocha quoted "the characteristics of the crime" and "the way the thieves acted" as possibly indicating "a contract job done for an international crime ring."

Jean Boghici (Jan. 28, 1928-May 31, 2015) revealed, "We can only hope the bandits turn the paintings over to someone who will take care of them."

Vera de Alencar saw Dalí as a key target since "Dalí's picture, for example, is the only one by him in public exhibition in Latin America."

Who took the 9.25- by 13.58-inch (23.5- by 34.5-centimeter) inventory number MCC430, titled Two Balconies from 1929, during the second Chácara do Céu Museum art theft?

Brazilian collector and dealer Jean Boghici hoped for proper care of the second Chácara do Céu Museum art theft paintings by whoever holds them: Época @RevistaEpoca, via Twitter June 2, 2015

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Salvador Dalí's Two Balconies (Portuguese: Os Dois Balcões), 1929 oil on wood stolen during Chácara do Céu Museum 2006 art theft: Federal Bureau of Investigation Art Crime Team, Public Domain, via FBI @ https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/art-theft/fbi-top-ten-art-crimes/theft-museu-chacara-do-ceu-rio-de-janeiro

Chácara do Céu Museum's 2006 art theft played out amid Carnival's Carmelite Block celebrations; Rio de Janeiro's Carmelite Convent (Convento do Carmo) is the namesake of the Santa Teresa neighborhood's Carmelite Block during Carnival celebrations; 2007 view of Carmelite Convent: Fulviusbsas, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rio-CarmoConvent.JPG

aerial panorama of Rio de Janeiro's Santa Teresa neighborhood, locale of Chácara do Céu Museum and the museum's two art thefts in 1989 and again in 2006: Chensiyuan, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_santa_teresa_panorama_2014.jpg

Brazilian collector and dealer Jean Boghici hoped for proper care of the second Chácara do Céu Museum art theft paintings by whoever holds them: Época @RevistaEpoca, via Twitter June 1, 2015, @ https://twitter.com/RevistaEpoca/status/605533681525108736

For further information:

Agence France-Presse. 26 February 2006. "Brazil Art Heist Is Cloaked by Carnival." The New York Times > World > Americas.
Available @ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/world/americas/brazil-art-heist-is-cloaked-by-carnival.html

Época @RevistaEpoca. "Jean Boghici, um idealista apaixonado pela arte. O marchand morreu aos 87 anos, no Rio." Twitter. June 1, 2015.
Available @ https://twitter.com/RevistaEpoca/status/605533681525108736

Marriner, Derdriu. 5 May 2017. "Gardner Museum Art Theft Unsolved on Chácara Museum Theft Anniversary." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/05/gardner-museum-art-theft-unsolved-on.html

McMahon, Colin. 28 February 2006. "Gunmen Use Brazil's Carnival as Cover in $50 Million Art Heist." Chicago Tribune > News.
Available @ http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-02-28/news/0602280108_1_picasso-art-thieves-million-art-heist

Nikkhah, Roya; and Downie, Andrew. 26 February 2006. "Carnival Gang Grabs £30M Art Treasures from Rio Museum." The Telegraph > News > World News > South America.
Available @ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/1511532/Carnival-gang-grabs-30m-art-treasures-from-Rio-museum.html

Siquara, Carlos Andrei. 5 February 2016. "No Rastro de Obras Perdidas." O Tempo > Magazine > Diversão > Livro.
Available @ http://www.otempo.com.br/divers%C3%A3o/magazine/no-rastro-de-obras-perdidas-1.1226775

Skidmore, Thomas E. 1999. Brazil: Five Centuries of Change in Latin America. Latin American Histories series. New York NY: Oxford University Press.