BRASILIA: Damaged canvases, marked statues, destroyed clocks. Louis XIV: Bolsonar mobs that raided the places of power in Brasilia searched everything in their path, including priceless works of art.

The three buildings that were vandalized, the Planalto Presidential Palace, the Supreme Court, and the seat of Congress, are Oscar Niemeyer’s modern architectural treasures.

This futuristic construction with the emblematic curves of this brilliant architect has for many been classified by Unesco as an urban structure of the Brazilian capital as a World Heritage for Humanity, in 1987.

Each of the three buildings, which had an impressive number of broken windows, was also full of rare furniture, works by great Brazilian modernist artists, or others offered to Brazil by foreign countries.

In a press release, the National Artistic Historical Heritage Institute of Brazil (Iphan) “deeply regrets the damage caused” and assured that expertise would soon be put in place to “assess the need for restoration”.

Here is a list of the most iconic items damaged:

“Justice” is marked

The granite statue “La Justice”, sculpted in 1961 by Brazilian Alfredo Ceschiatti, is in front of the Supreme Court, on the Place des Trois Powers, opposite the presidential palace.

This monumental work more than three meters high represents a seated woman, eyes closed, with a sword in her hand.

On Sunday, he was tagged, with the words “Perdeu, mané” (you lose, poor idiot), on his chest.

The phrase was used by a Supreme Court judge, Luis Roberto Barroso, to address a Bolsonaris who challenged him about the reliability of electronic ballot boxes in November, shortly after Jair Bolsonaro’s second round loss to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. from the presidential election.

Louis XIV clock

A clock made by Balthazar Martinot, watchmaker for the French King Louis XIV, of the Boulle marquetry, was found in the ground, on the third floor of the Presidential Palace, a heavily damaged brown and gold chest, a gaping hole in the dial.

According to the Presidency, it was a gift from the Court of the Sun King to the Portuguese crown, which King Joao VI brought to Brazil in 1808, when he fled Lisbon as Napoleon’s troops approached.

Only two watches of this type were made by this watchmaker: the other, half the size of the one damaged in Brazil, is on display at the Palace of Versailles.

The restoration of the Brasilia example was deemed “very difficult” by Rogerio Carvalho, who is in charge of the legacy of the Presidential Palace, was quoted in the press release.

Modernist masterpiece

The painting “The mulattoes”, by painter Di Cavalcanti, one of the masters of Brazilian modernism, exhibited in the Noble Hall on the third floor of the Presidential Palace, was badly damaged.

The canvas dating from 1962, which represents four women in festive plant decorations, was “stabbed seven times” by rioters, according to the Presidency.

“Its value is estimated at 8 million reais (about 1.4 million euros), but works of this kind usually sell for five times as much at auction.”

A historic table as a barricade

The “work desk of Juscelino Kubitschek”, the former Brazilian president who was the visionary behind the construction of Brasilia, the capital city built ex nihilo in the middle of the savanna and inaugurated in 1960, is also damaged.

This dark brown table, designed by Oscar Niemeyer and only daughter Anna Maria, was torn down and used as a barricade by rioters to block law enforcement access, according to the Presidency.