The Art Thief is a nonfiction book about the most prolific art thief ever known. Stéphan Breitwieser, aided by his girlfriend Ann-Catherine Kleinklaus, stole hundreds, maybe thousands of paintings and objets d’art while only in his 20s.
Breitwieser was a young man who grew up wealthy and spoiled by his mother until a traumatic divorce that broke with his father and left him and his mother quite poor. Not that he went out and got a job. Instead, he lived with his mother, received some money from his father, and was supported by the state.
He loved the beautiful things that filled his father’s house, though, and he read extensively about art and antiques, becoming very knowledgeable. Then one day while visiting a museum, he swiped a lovely ivory statue of Adam and Eve. It was easy.
Breitwieser seemed compelled to steal these beautiful things, not to sell them but to decorate his two attic rooms and to be admired and touched. Kleinklaus participated in his thefts—it seems, because she won’t talk about it—mostly to keep him from doing something reckless.
This is a fascinating story of obsession gone wrong. It manages to build a fair amount of suspense along the way and is written in more of a novelistic style.
One thing that disturbed me slightly was a hint of not exactly admiration but in any case just a bit of the kind of attention that fuels some people to do heinous acts. I say this despite the book’s deprecations of Breitwieser’s actions. It particularly grated when I learned what became of the more fragile items in his collection once he was caught.
Nevertheless, it is an interesting true crime book.
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I was hoping to read this for Nonfiction November!
Oh, nice!
Thanks for the reminder of this one – I have had it on my TBR list (but it’s not in my stack, so had slipped off the radar).
I wonder if someone had it on their list last year for Nonfiction November, and that’s where we both heard of it. I’m not sure.
Interesting story! I don’t admire him, but the fact that he didn’t seem to be stealing them for money makes it a bit muddier – sounds like he had some kind of obsession.
Oh, yes.
Although it might be a little biased, I think this one sounds fascinating. I ahve downloaded it. It seems Finkel specialised in unusual, personal stories and I found “The Stranger in the Woods”, and Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa” which seems to have been filmed. Interesting.
Oh, that’s interesting. I haven’t read anything else by him.
Especially A Stranger in the Woods sounds interesting. It is about a man who lived like a hermit for 30 years in the forests of Maine.