The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

Breitwieser and Anne-Catherine attend a fine art fair in the Netherlands. Security is high at the event, and, at one point, a thief is chased and apprehended. Breitwieser takes advantage of the distraction by taking a still-life painting on copper by Jan van Kessel the Elder. The couple crosses the French border with the stolen painting in the car but are not stopped. Breitwieser starts to add his own provenance stickers to the back of stolen paintings. He writes, “For the love of art, and for Anne-Catherine, my two passions” and signs them (79).

Breitwieser’s preferred manner of theft involves slicing display cases open and bending the glass until he can reach inside. Afterward, the display case appears to be still sealed. If possible, he also rearranges the items in the case so the missing piece is less obvious. In 1996, he makes a mistake while stealing a bronze hunting knife from a Swiss castle. The display case glass shatters, and he flees the scene, leaving glass and blood everywhere. After regaining his composure, Breitwieser feels sure no one is aware of the incident and returns to steal the knife.

One day, Breitwieser sees an opportunity to steal an apothecary jar during a guided castle tour. He puts it in his backpack, and the couple calmly continue on the tour, chatting with the guide. Breitwieser and Anne-Catherine continue to steal on tours, making a point of engaging with museum staff during their visits. After a heist at a French museum, Breitwieser discovers his car has been scratched. He calls the police despite having a stolen figurine in his trunk. On another occasion, he returns to his car to be confronted by a police officer issuing a parking ticket. Despite having a large altarpiece panel hidden under his jacket, Breitwieser argues with the officer and gets the ticket revoked. In a French museum, Breitwieser encounters a display cabinet identical to one bought for him by his grandparents. He has the cabinet key with him and uses it to steal an alms box.

Many of Breitwieser’s thefts involve the patient removal of screws from display cases. Sometimes he returns to work on the same screws several times before stealing an item. In the Alexis Forel Museum in Switzerland, Breitwieser removes 30 screws to steal a serving platter. He succeeds but knows he is pushing his thefts to the limit.

Swiss police inspector Alexandre Von der Mühll is a specialist in art crime. He studies footage of a platter being stolen from the Alexis Forel Museum. The couple on the video are unaware of the carefully-concealed camera in the room. Von der Mühll believes several recent art thefts in Switzerland are linked. A collector of art himself, he is disgusted by museum robberies. He also sees the evident confidence of the thieves as a challenge. At the same time, police inspector Bernard Darties from the French art theft division is investigating fourteen thefts he believes to be linked in France.

Finkel asserts that art theft is one of the most profitable areas of crime. Works by Pablo Picasso are most frequently targeted, and approximately 1,000 of his works have been stolen. In 1976, an armed gang stole 118 of Picasso’s paintings from a French exhibition. Picasso himself was questioned over the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911. The artist was innocent but had previously commissioned the theft of figurines from the Louvre, which he used as inspiration for his work. Picasso returned the figurines anonymously after being questioned about the Mona Lisa. Other artists popular with art thieves include Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, and Joan Miró.

Inspector Darties believes a cultured couple, possibly husband and wife, are responsible for the recent spate of art crimes. However, he has no other clues to their identity. Darties previously worked in antiterrorism and sees art theft as a similarly antisocial crime. He considers the recent theft of Madeleine de France to be a particularly heinous example due to the artwork’s historical significance. Painted by Corneille de Lyon in 1536, the portrait is of King Francois I’s teenage daughter. Madeleine died of tuberculosis a year after the portrait was commissioned. The artwork was stolen from the Royal Chateau of Blois, where Madeleine lived for a while. It had been on display for 138 years before being stolen.

Breitwieser and Anne-Catherine visit the Royal Chateau of Blois. They admire Madeleine de France but agree it is too risky to steal. The chateau is busy, and the painting is in a complex double frame. Furthermore, Breitwieser has no overcoat or backpack to hide it in. Revisiting the painting before leaving, the couple notices the room is less busy, and the guards are talking. Breitwieser discovers the artwork is attached to its inner frame by Velcro. He quickly detaches the painting and hides it down the front of his pants, keeping his back to the guards. Madeleine de France is the couple’s second theft of the day. Earlier, they stole two tobacco boxes and a fan from Château de Chambord. The couple have now committed almost 100 thefts.

Newspaper reports begin to indicate that the police are looking for a couple in relation to a number of art thefts. However, descriptions of the perpetrators widely differ. Breitwieser begins discarding the frames of stolen paintings in unexpected places as his “calling card.” He feels safe as he varies the European countries from which he steals. He also does not engage in the activities expected of art thieves: “fencing, extorting, [or] monetizing” (99).

Finkel explains that most art thieves attempt to profit from their crimes in one of three ways. Firstly, they may sell to a dealer or collector. Secondly, they may extort money from the owner for the art’s return (art-napping). Finally, they may use art as “collateral” within the criminal underworld. All three methods involve the “art changing hands” (99)—the point where many thieves are caught. For example, when Edvard Munch’s The Scream was stolen in 1994, an undercover investigator caught the thieves and retrieved the painting.

The author points out that thieves who steal for their own aesthetic pleasure are a popular trope in fiction. However, the phenomenon is rare in real life. The contrast between fantasy and reality is emphasized by the 1962 Bond film Dr. No. In the movie, the villain surrounds himself with stolen artwork, including The Duke of Wellington by Francisco Goya. The year before, Goya’s famous painting was stolen from London’s National Gallery, London, by an unemployed taxi driver. His attempts to profit from the theft were unsuccessful, and the thief returned the painting after four years.