Second Chácara do Céu Museum Art Theft Feb. 24, 2006: Picasso Dancers

Summary: Latin America has one less Picasso on public display because the artist's Dance painting is one of five second Chácara do Céu Museum art theft casualties.

Pablo Picasso's Dance (Portuguese: A Dança), 1956 oil on canvas 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, aligns with the worldwide trend in absconding with artworks by one famous artist over all others.

Julian Radcliffe of the Art Loss Register in London, United Kingdom, brings to 1,147 the total number of one artist's disputed, missing, stolen artworks by 2012. It comes down to the enduring, worldwide appeal of assemblages, ceramics, collages, drawings, paintings, prints and sculptures by Pablo Ruiz Picasso (Oct. 5, 1881-April 8, 1973). Picasso artworks draw such high prices and huge crowds that the Chácara Museum art crime perpetrators diverted not only a painting but also an illustrated book.

A book of 15 bull-depicted lithographs and a painting of four dancers in a hand-held, moving, open, sardana-like circle ended up as extractions with three other artworks.

Fifteen engravings fill Toros (Bulls) by Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (July 12, 1904-Sept. 23, 1973), Nobel Prize Winner for Literature under the pseudonym Pablo Neruda. The 1960-released, 16.75- by 21.5-inch (42.54- by 54.61-centimeter) limited edition from the publisher Au Vent d'Arles in Paris, France, gives Picasso's pochoir lithographs to Neruda's poetry.

Stephen Van Dyk and Carolyn Siegel of Smithsonian Institution Libraries herald pochoir stenciling as honing "crisp lines and brilliant colors" for freshly printed or wet-appearing images. Pochoir invokes George Barbier's (Oct. 16, 1882-March 16, 1932) artistry for such high-fashion journals as Gazette du Bon Ton and Jardin des Dames et des Modes. It jumped from its heyday of 1900 through 1939 to 1960 because of the customized, unique vividness that its expensive, labor- and time-intensive, slow process jostles.

Sporting with bulls knows ancient lineages from Crete's prehistoric bull-riders to Navarre's bull-runners near the borders between France and Spain, Portugal's non-homicidal bull-fighters and Spain's bull-killers. It lists among its celebrated, creative enthusiasts Georges Bizet (Oct. 25, 1838-June 3, 1875), whose opera laments Carmen's love for the bullfighter Escamillo over Corporal José. The artistic and literary careers of Picasso, native son of southern Spain's Andalucía region through whose arenas many bullfighters marched triumphantly, manageed bull- and bullfighter-themed periods. Collectors and critics noted similar popularity and profitability of Picasso's artistry in Toros (Bulls) in 1960 and in Toros y Toreros (Bulls and Bullfighters) of 1961.

The second Chácara do Céu Museum art theft obtained the contributions to Neruda, not the collaboration with Luis Miguel Domenguín (Nov. 9, 1926-May 8, 1996).

Predilections for violence pursue Picasso's purloined artworks since one purported proof of life pulled Picasso's Dance from Morro dos Prazeres (Mountain of Pleasures) camping pyre ashes. They queue among reminiscent qualities in quotes by informants of respectively actual and rumored harm to Van Gogh and to Caravaggio and Gardner art theft casualties. Stephen Kurkjian, Boston Globe reporter, Master Thieves author and Pulitzer Prize recipient, relegated rushes cunningly into, and brutally through, the Gardner to gang rivalry-related turf wars. Bargaining, collateral, collection, initiation, ransom, revenue and rivalry suggest similar motives for stealing Caravaggio and van Mieris masterpieces and Chácara, Gardner and Van Gogh Museum artworks.

Who took the 39.37- by 31.89-inch (100- by 81-centimeter) painting titled Dance from 1956, inventory number MCC406, during the second Chácara do Céu Museum art theft?

A suggested scenario for Pablo Picasso's Dance is destruction by fire at a campsite in Santa Teresa's Morro dos Prazeres favela (slum); view from tram of Santa Teresa's slum (right) and affluent (left) sectors: chensiyuan, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

Pablo Picasso's Dance (Portuguese: A Dança), 1956 oil on canvas 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

A suggested scenario for Pablo Picasso's Dance is destruction by fire at a campsite in Santa Teresa's Morro dos Prazeres favela (slum); view from tram of Santa Teresa's slum (right) and affluent (left) sectors: chensiyuan, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_rio_de_janeiro_slum_2010.JPG

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

Marriner, Derdriu. 26 May 2017. "Second Chácara do Céu Museum Art Theft Feb. 24, 2006: Monet Seascape." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/05/second-chacara-do-ceu-museum-art-theft.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.

Tardáguila, Cristina. 2016. A Arte do Descaso. Rio de Janeiro Brazil: Editora Intrínseca.
Available @ https://www.amazon.com.br/Arte-do-Descaso-Cristina-Tard%C3%A1guila/dp/8580578965/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1452189811&sr=8-1&keywords=a+arte+do+descas

Van Dyk, Stephen H.; and Siegel, Carolyn. "Vibrant Visions: Pochoir Prints in the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Library." Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
Available @ http://www.sil.si.edu/ondisplay/pochoir/intro.htm