The work “Simiarum et vespertilionum Brasiliensium species novae”, from 1823, was recovered.
Photo: Getty Images – John Piekos
The work Simiarum et vespertilionum Brasiliensium species novaeby the German naturalist and explorer Johann Baptist von Spix, was one of the highly valuable specimens stolen from the Emílio Goeldi Museum in Belém, capital of the state of Pará, 16 years ago.
The Brazilian authorities managed to locate the book with the collaboration of the Art and Antiquities Unit of the London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard), a division specialized in the investigation of crimes against cultural heritage.
The recovered volume is part of a collection made by the author on Brazilian fauna and flora, focused mainly on monkeys, as described by the Federal Police in a note.
That and other works were stolen from the Emílio Goeldi in Pará in 2008, in an event for which, three years later, three museum workers were denounced.
Last March they managed to recover, also in London, De India utriusque re naturali et medicaby the Dutchman Willem Piso and dating from 1658.
In December 2023, Brazilian authorities repatriated the book from Argentina Reise in Chile and auf dem Amazonstromeby Eduard Friedrich Poeppig and published in 1836.
In it he details his explorations in Chile, Peru and along the Amazon River, and offers extensive descriptions of the local culture, flora and fauna, a “valuable source for understanding the history and biodiversity of 19th-century South America.”
Founded in 1866, the Emílio Goeldi Museum of Pará is a scientific research institution linked to the Ministry of Science and Technology of Brazil, and focused on the study of the natural and sociocultural systems of the Amazon, the largest tropical forest on the planet.
The Federal Police of Brazil guaranteed that it “continues working to locate and repatriate all the stolen works, and to identify the perpetrators of the theft and those possibly responsible for their sale.”
