A suspect has been arrested in the theft of eight Henri Matisse artworks from a São Paolo library, Brazilian authorities said on Monday, December 8. The man was apprehended in central São Paolo after being “identified following investigative work and analysis of security cameras that recorded the criminal act on Sunday,” the government of the Brazilian state said in a statement.

Earlier on Monday, police said they had identified one of two suspects behind the theft of the engravings by Matisse and found the robbers’ getaway car. A pair of gunmen stole the late French master’s works, as well as five pieces by the Brazilian painter Candido Portinari, from the Mario de Andrade Library in the center of the Brazilian mega-city.

Police say the thieves held up a security guard and an elderly couple visiting the library, grabbed the engravings and other items from a glass dome where they were kept, put them in a canvas bag and fled through the main exit. São Paulo’s security department said investigations were ongoing to identify the second suspect. “The escape vehicle was also located” and sent for forensic analysis, it said in a statement.

Brazilian news site G1 aired a video apparently showing one of the thieves carrying several of the artworks through the street in broad daylight, then leaving them propped against a wall next to a pile of trash and running away. São Paulo has a sophisticated surveillance system that uses security cameras and facial recognition technology.

Stolen on final day

Authorities have yet to disclose the value of the stolen pieces, which were part of a modern art exhibition titled “From the Book to the Museum,” highlighting a collaboration between the library and the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo. The theft came on the last day of the exhibit, which opened in October.

Newspaper Folha de São Paulo said the pieces on display included cut-paper collages from Matisse’s limited-edition 1947 art book Jazz, of which only 300 copies exist worldwide. Works by Matisse (1869-1954), a towering figure of 20^th-century modern art, can sell for millions of dollars.

The five engravings by Portinari (1903-1962), one of Brazil’s most celebrated painters, were illustrations from the 1959 book Menino de Engenho (“Plantation Boy”), according to São Paulo city hall.