Pair held in $2OM art theft

Press, 29 December 1980, Page 8

Pair held in $2OM art theft

NZPA Buenos Aires Two employees of the Argentine National Fine Arts Museum were held for questioning yesterday as the police attempted to solve the theft on Christmas Day of 16 paintings and art objects valued at more than $2O million. Police sources said that two night-watchmen were held for further interrogation after giving conflicting evidence about the burglary, the largest art theft in Argentine history.

Museum authorities declined to identify the stolen works, but art experts in Buenos Aires said the stolen paintings may have included Impressionist works by Matisse, Renoir, Cezanne, Degas, Gauguin, and Rodin. Police sources said the thieves apparently entered the two-storey museum near downtown Buenos Aires through an opening in the roof, using ladders left by workmen who were refinishing the outside of the building. All the works once belonged to the collection of a wealthy Argentine rancher named, Antonio Santamarina.

Santamarina’s heirs smuggled part of the collection*, out of Argentina after his death in 1974, in violation Of a law designed to keep valuable art in the country. After the Government started legal action, the heirs settled the case by giving the rest of the collection to the Governmentowned museum.