Douglas proposed in front of the painting "Abaporu" at Malba

Her name is Tarsila, and her boyfriend proposed to her in front of the painting "Abaporu" at Malba.

The couple was visiting the museum while a device followed them, ready for the big moment.
In front of a painting "Abaporu" by Brazilian artist Tarsila do Amaral, he proposed to her.
The museum has several love stories to its credit.

The couple is from Porto Alegre and is on vacation in Buenos Aires. So far, nothing unusual. But Tarsila and Douglas staged a very unusual scene at the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (Malba) when, with the complicity of the institution's staff, the young man proposed to her in front of the painting "Abaporu" by Brazilian artist Tarsila do Amaral.

“Yesterday, Malba witnessed a touching love story. Douglas had previously contacted Malba's communications team to coordinate the surprise. He wanted to pop the question in front of Tarsila do Amaral's work Abaporú, one of the icons of the permanent collection, because his partner is also named Tarsila. Her parents named her that because they are great admirers of the Brazilian artist,” the museum said in a statement.

Last year, Malba had already been the scene of a love story. On that occasion, a visitor came to the institution to contact a boy she had bumped into between paintings. And the museum acted as a matchmaker.
A romantic plot

This time, the Malba staff conspired with Douglas to discreetly follow the couple through the galleries until the big moment. “After touring the museum's galleries together, they stopped in front of the painting. He got down on one knee, proposed to her, and she said yes. They've been together for thirteen years and decided to take their relationship a step further,” explained Malba.

“It's a team effort from the communications department,” the couple behind this story told Clarín. “We're always attentive to these kinds of stories among museum visitors. In this particular case, the young man approached someone at the museum who let us know. It was then a matter of coordination among the team.”
“Abaporu,” one of the most emblematic works of Brazilian modernism, was painted by Tarsila do Amaral in 1928 as a birthday gift for her husband, the writer Oswald de Andrade.

That's exactly what a social media user recalled when commenting on the Malba post: "'Abaporu' was a gift from Tarsila to Oswald, a self-portrait of hers for him. The most romantic room in Malba." Another added: "I'm going to visit that painting to see if it brings me luck."

The painting gave rise to the Anthropophagous Manifesto, which proposed building Brazilian cultural identity based on both the creative assimilation of foreign influences and the revaluation of indigenous roots. Inspired by childhood memories and the European avant-garde, "Abaporu" presents a mythical creature rooted in its territory, which over time became an icon of 20th-century Brazilian culture.

The museum also recalled the case from 2024: “In June of last year, a young woman fell in love with a Colombian man during a visit, and the museum launched the #MalbaCupido campaign to help her find him. Thanks to the search going viral, Alejandro appeared, and the two stayed in touch.”
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