The Art Thief
A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession
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3.9 • 50 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century • “The Art Thief, like its title character, has confidence, élan, and a great sense of timing."—The New Yorker
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Lit Hub
"Enthralling." —The Wall Street Journal
Stéphane Bréitwieser is the most prolific art thief of all time.
He pulled off more than 200 heists, often in crowded museums in broad daylight.
His girlfriend served as his accomplice.
His collection was worth an estimated $2 billion.
He never sold a piece, displaying his stolen art in his attic bedroom.
He felt like a king.
Until everything came to a shocking end.
In this spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, Michael Finkel gives us one of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of our times, a riveting story of art, theft, love, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The Art Thief is a slim, fast read that’s incredibly rich. Author Michael Finkel wastes no time pulling us into the world of Stéphane Breitwieser, an enigmatic Frenchman who, along with his girlfriend, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, stole over 200 works of art from museums and galleries across Europe—and kept them sequestered in their attic apartment, where they could admire them from their canopied bed. Finkel intersperses his account of Breitwieser’s jaw-dropping crime spree—which stretched between 1997 and 2001—with matter-of-fact observations about his subject’s bizarre quirks and arrested development, along with commentary from psychologists and some of the detectives who struggled to catch him. This is a riveting true-crime book with zero violence but endless mystery.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this masterful true crime account, Finkel (The Stranger in the Woods) traces the fascinating exploits of Stéphane Breitwieser, a French art thief who stole more than 200 artworks from across Europe between 1995 and 2001, turning his mother's attic into a glittering trove of oil paintings, silver vessels, and antique weaponry. Mining extensive interviews with Breitwieser himself, and several with those who detected and prosecuted him, Finkel meticulously restages the crimes, describing the castles and museums that attracted Breitwieser and Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, his accomplice and romantic partner; the luminous oils and sculptures that caught Breitwieser's eye; and the swift, methodical actions he took to liberate his prizes. According to Breitwieser, his sole motive was aesthetic: to possess great beauty, to "gorge on it." Drawing on art theory and Breitwieser's psychology reports, Finkel speculates on his subject's addiction to beauty and on Anne-Catherine's acquiescence to the crimes. The account is at its best when it revels in the audacity of the escapades, including feats of misdirection in broad daylight, and the slow, inexorable pace of the law. It's a riveting ride.
