Summary of The Art Thief By Michael Finkel: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

By Willie M. Joseph

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This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.

Summary of The Art Thief By Michael Finkel: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

 

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The Art Thief is a captivating true-crime narrative about Stéphane Breitwieser, the world's most prolific art thief. Finkel's book follows Breitwieser's world, where he never stole for money but displayed his treasures in secret rooms. With remarkable athleticism and the ability to circumvent security systems, Breitwieser managed to steal over three hundred objects over eight years. However, his talent led to a disregard for risk and an addiction to score, leading to his girlfriend's pleas to stop. The story is a captivating exploration of art, crime, love, and the insatiable hunger for beauty.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willie M. Joseph
• Release date: Jul 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215635926

Willie M. Joseph

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Book preview

1

Stéphane Breitwieser and his girlfriend Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus visit the Rubens House museum in Antwerp, Belgium, in February 1997. The couple is a couple who are preparing to hunt an ivory sculpture of Adam and Eve. Breitwieser, a museum guard, is unsure of the best escape route, as the museum has a weak security system. The plexiglass box, which can be separated from the base by removing two screws, is a weakness of the museum. The guards are human and can get hungry, making it difficult for Breitwieser to steal the sculpture.

As the couple is alone in the room, Breitwieser transforms into an art-gazing stance, focusing on the carving. He uses a Swiss Army knife and a screwdriver tool to work on the sculpture, which he finds to be a masterpiece. The guard stops and scans the gallery, but Breitwieser remains focused on the task.

As the guards appear three times, Breitwieser is stressed and decides to act or abandon now. He is concerned about the group of visitors present, who are all wearing headphones. Breitwieser is unable to delay, as one glance from one visitor could potentially end his life.

Breitwieser grasps the ivory sculpture, readjusts his overcoat, and leaves the plexiglass box to the side. He strides off, moving with calculated but no obvious haste, aiming to steal the sculpture and save his girlfriend from the museum's security guards. The protagonist is aware of the potential consequences of a conspicuous theft, but he doesn't run. Instead, he slinks through a door in the museum's central courtyard, passing through the sculpture and returning to the main entrance. He follows Anne-Catherine on the city streets of Antwerp, keeping his pace and avoiding police.

He drives a blue Opel Tigra, and they speed home, a pair of 25-year-old kids. Their vigilance disappears when they hit the accelerator, leaving them home free.

2

The house in Mulhouse, an industrial city in eastern France, is a humble cube of stuccoed concrete with small windows and a steep, red-tiled roof. The living space is on the ground floor, but a narrow stairway leads up to two rooms, a living area, and a bedroom. The bedroom is a majestic four-poster canopied bed, draped with gold velour curtains and covered with red satin sheets. The young couple sleeps in the bedroom, where they see an ivory carving of Adam and Eve, a figurine of Diana, a statuette of Catherine of Alexandria, and a curly-haired cupid resting on a skull. The room also contains a night table, a large armoire, a desk, and a dresser.

The bedroom is filled with silver platters, bowls, vases, cups, gilded tea sets, pewter miniatures, and other items. The second room of the couple's hideaway contains a wooden altarpiece, copper plate, an iron alms box, a stained-glass window, apothecary jars, and ivory carvings. The room also contains wristwatches, tapestries, beer tankards, flintlock pistols, hand-bound books, and more ivory. The grandest, most valuable items are oil paintings from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, primarily by masters of the late Renaissance and early Baroque styles. The works include dozens of period greats, amplifying the color in the rooms. Art journalists estimate that everything in the house is worth as much as two billion dollars, all stored in an attic lair in a nondescript house near a hardscrabble town.

3

Stéphane Breitwieser, a successful and prolific art thief, is known for his actions and has confessed to having stolen pieces from his hidden rooms with the help of Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus. Breitwieser believes that stealing artwork should be a daytime affair of refined stealth, and that he is not disgusted by other art thieves, even the most accomplished ones. He believes that deliberately slicing or breaking a painting should still be immoral, and that he abandons the crime if there is no time for diligence.

Breitwieser's sole motivation