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Chatô's wildest spree took place in Manhattan's Wildenstein galleries, where in one hectic morning he bought 32 paintings (including Goya's portrait of the Secretary-General of the Spanish Inquisition, Don Juan Antonio Llorente—see color pages) for a total of $3,500,000 that he did not have. To raise the money, he mortgaged the whole Sāo Paulo collection to Manhattan's Guaranty Trust Co. Later, in a tearful scene, he got Brazil's President Juscelino Kubitschek to order the Federal Savings Bank to grant Chatô a loan. Chatô paid off the dollars, is now repaying the federal bank in rapidly devaluing cruzeiros.
Next: the Prado. The $25 million Sāo Paulo collection includes 370 canvases, 200 Italian ceramics, 73 Degas sculptures, and it is about to have a new home. Like most of his collection, Chatô got the building for free. Started by Sāo Paulo Millionaire Armando Alvares Penteado before his death in 1947, the four-story, marble-floored museum was designed by the late French Architect Auguste Ferret, cost $15 million with its 400-seat theater, 17 classrooms and workshops, 172,160 sq. ft. of gallery space. Chatô expects to move in late this month, already has two new acquisitions ready: Gauguin's Joseph and Potiphar's Wife and Jean Antoine Houdon's finely chiseled bust of Voltaire.
But even with a second museum started and three more planned, Chatô is unsatisfied. Recently he visited Madrid's Prado museum, stared in awe at the centuries of accumulated art, said thoughtfully: "I wonder how much we'd need to buy the Prado for Sāo Paulo."