Last year, 2023, saw the publication of Michael Finkel’s The Art Thief, a riveting true account of the escapades of Stephane Breitwieser, a native of Alsace, and probably the most prolific art thief in history who, until he was caught, tried, and punished, stole art from museums in France, Belgium, and Switzerland, for the better part of a decade, with the active help of his girlfriend. He kept his ill-gotten hoard of art treasures, like Smaug the dragon in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, in his own cave, two rooms of an apartment in the attic of his mother’s house, access to which she was apparently denied by her own son. In that secret hideaway was a treasure trove consisting of stolen oil paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, tapestries, flintlock pistols, silver cups, bowls, chalices, a famous ivory statue of Adam embracing Eve in the Garden of Eden, and even a four-foot tall wooden statue of the Virgin Mary from a church, anything of value that took his fancy, in a haul alleged to have been valued at up to $2 billion. As a complement to his narrative, Finkel provides the reader with photos of the objects stolen, and drawings of the rooms’ probable contents, in a crowded art gallery of Breitwieser’s very own.
The gripping story of this crime spree has been exhaustively researched over several years by the author, who interviewed police, art experts, and psychologists for his study, and provides in minute detail the modus operandi of the thief for many of his robberies, his success attributable in large measure to poor museum security and cunning sleight of hand on the part of the thief himself. When Breitwieser is finally caught, the story is far from over, for when police visit the house following his confession of guilt, its attic rooms are found to be empty.
Readers trying to make sense of what happened next must examine the motivation of the culprit or culprits who removed the contents while Breitwieser himself was in police custody, and come to terms with the sentences eventually handed down to those involved from the outset. Finkel maintains suspense throughout, yet one hostile reviewer has glibly dismissed his effort as productive of a “popcorn flick of a book” and the thief himself as unworthy of the attention extended him. Such a judgement does not do justice to the story or its author, nor does this same critic’s scornful claim that Finkel has sympathetically portrayed Breitwieser, despite his criminality, as a misunderstood “romantic hero.” This is a colossal misreading.
The truth is that Breitwieser is an enigma. Now in his sixties, he was bullied as a child, a social outcast who disliked parties, video games, and social media, preferring to seek solitary solace in collecting stamps, coins, and old postcards. “I was the opposite of everyone” he says. He explained his love of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian artifacts by admitting “I took refuge in the past.” He was, says Finkel, “born in the wrong century.” An only child, his parents were distant from him, his rich father harsh and judgemental, and after he abandoned his family, divorce was inevitable. His mother, a nurse, was reduced to penury. She drew shocked comment when, years later, at her son’s trial, she publicly announced “I hate my son.” Breitwieser never worked steadily, only at menial jobs, and never for long, preferring to live off welfare benefits, generous gifts from his grandparents, and rent-free accommodation provided by his mother, who kept her distance from him. He was considered by several familiar with him as both immature and spoiled, yet his dysfunctional life had begun years before adulthood.
