The Art Thief
A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession
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4.2 • 713 Ratings
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- $1.99
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.
Customer Reviews
“Aesthetics are higher than ethics” Oscar Wilde
The epigraph at the beginning of The Art Thief is a quote by Oscar Wilde: “ Aesthetics are higher than ethics”. This poses one of the many questions of morality in this fascinating true story of the most successful art thief in history.
For seven years, beginning in 1997, Stephane Breitwieser stole more than 300 works of art from small museums in western Europe, worth, according to The New Yorker Magazine, $2 B. More amazing than the value of his heists, is the fact that he did not steal for profit. All the booty was stored in his attic apartment of his mother’s home, so Breitwieser could savor the mere proximity and touch of some of the most beautiful art in the world. He didn’t want to sell it. He wanted to possess it.
He also stole because he could. The vulnerability of the artwork he took is sometimes laughable. Oftentimes he’d just undo some screws and put a million dollar silver chalice inside the sleeve of his coat. His audacity and instinctive reactions are startling. If he couldn’t get an item through a security check, he’s just throw it out a window and collect it later.
Breitwieser quickly became obsessed with stealing art. His life was incomplete without it. Even after he was caught, spend years in prison, ruined the lives of of his mother and girlfriend, he couldn’t stop stealing. When he was, miraculously, given a second chance with a book and possible movie deal in the making, Breitwieser again sabotaged his own life.
Through hundreds of hours of interviews with Breitwieser, psychologists, journalists, police investigators, and lawyers, Michael Finkel has presented a mesmerizing study of a obsession. But is an obsession with art more noble than any other criminal obsession? If he hurt no one, should the crime go unpunished? There is no ending to this story, nor is there judgement. There are only questions to which each reader may have his own answer.
Really good read
I thoroughly enjoyed this. I bought it on a whim, and it was so interesting. And it was a very quick read. I highly recommended.
The art thief
Great story! Well writtenFysteeone