Brazilian customs authorities were in for a surprise on Monday. Upon inspecting a shipping container sent to Rio de Janeiro from the US, they found 20 works of contemporary art worth an estimated $4.5 million, the AP reports.
The two containers were marked as containing the belongings of a 75-year-old Brazilian woman. They had been shipped from Florida. Brazilian authorities don’t buy the front, however, alleging instead that a company was using the woman’s move to evade import and sales taxes on the artworks.
Among the 20 pieces are works by Rio de Janeiro–based artist Beatriz Milhazes and São Paulo–based street art duo Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo (better known as Os Gêmeos). The only work on which an estimated monetary value has thus far been placed is a sculpture by noted Rio-based postwar artist Sérgio de Camargo, who died in 1990. The unidentified piece is valued at $900,000.
