Art: The Heart of Santos-Dumont

A piece of sculpture holding a preserved human heart was a new feature of Rio de Janeiro last week. The heart thus honored was that of Brazil’s pioneer aviator, Alberto Santos-Dumont, who at Bagatelle, France in 1906 was the first man to fly a heavier-than-air machine in public demonstration (two years before the Wright brothers).*The memorial, in Rio de Janeiro’s Aeronautic Museum, was a 10-inch, gold-plated sphere, supported by a winged, kneeling figure in wood. Suspended within the sphere was a crystal ball containing preserving fluid in which floated the cold, now colorless heart of Santos-Dumont.

Small, swarthy, daring Santos-Dumont committed suicide in Sao Paulo in 1932, at the age of 59. At the time revolution raged in Brazil. Santos-Dumont’s body was embalmed by one Dr. Walther Haber-feld, who removed the heart. When political order was restored, the aviator was buried in Rio. Dr. Haberfeld offered the heart to the flyer’s family, but they would have none of it. The story was told to Dr. Paulo da-Rocha Gomide, advertising manager of Panair do Brasil (Pan American Airways’ Brazilian subsidiary). Quick to see the chance for a graceful bow to the memory of Brazil’s most famed airman, he persuaded the Government to accept it for its Aeronautic Museum. The designer of the container was bearded, 37-year-old Erico Monterosa.

*But three years after the Wrights had flown the first airplane at Kittyhawk, N.C.