Rio de Janeiro police have discovered a stolen painting worth 300 million real hidden under the bed of a con artist. The work, Sol Poente (Setting Sun) by Tarsila do Amaral in 1929, had been stolen from the widow of an art dealer and collector.
The scammer led the woman to believe that her daughter was dying and took her to a fortune teller and a Brazilian priest who confirmed this false prediction. The trio then offered to intervene spiritually for a fee. In the weeks that followed, the woman paid them hundreds of thousands of dollars for their services. When the widow became suspicious and refused to continue paying, she was forcibly confined to her home in Ipanema, a beach district of Rio de Janeiro. There she was threatened, beaten, and gradually robbed of the art collection she had inherited from her late husband.
Quadro de Tarsila do Amaral, avaliado em R$250 milhões, é encontrado embaixo da cama de falsa vidente.
— Jornal O Dia (@jornalodia) August 10, 2022
Créditos: Divulgação#ODia pic.twitter.com/O0IJoK7VyF
The loot included Mascarada by Emiliano Di Cavalcanti and two other paintings by Tarsila: Pont-Neuf and O Sono. Some works appear to have been sold to overseas collectors. Two paintings ended up in a museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while three others were recovered from an art gallery in São Paulo.