The art thief who stole not for money, but to live in 'a treasure chest'
New book details scale of Stéphane Breitwieser's art thefts, which some experts value at $2 billion US
After a day of waiting tables, Stéphane Breitwieser would return to his mother's house in eastern France, and climb the narrow wooden staircase to the attic — where he had stashed stolen artworks worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
"You open this door and inside, at the height of its glory, were more than 300 works of late Renaissance, early Baroque art — oil paintings, gold, silver, ivory, mother of pearl," said Michael Finkel, who tells Breitwieser's story in a new book.
"Everything glowing, everything crammed into these little rooms with an amazing four-poster, canopied bed in the middle where Breitwieser [slept]," Finkel told The Current's guest host Robyn Bresnahan.
Breitwieser shared that bed with his girlfriend and accomplice Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, living in a couple of rooms on the top floor of his mother's house in the small city of Mulhouse.
The pair began stealing from museums, galleries and churches all across France and central Europe in the mid-90s, when Breitwieser was in his early 20s. By the time he was arrested in 2001, he had become "by some accounts, the most prolific art thief who has ever lived," Finkel said.
Their loot varied, from paintings including Sibylle of Cleves by Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach the Younger, to antiques and sculptures including German carver Georg Petel's ivory depiction of Adam and Eve.
Estimates vary on their loot's overall value, but Finkel said some experts put the figure at $2 billion US.
By contrast, this art thief's lair was hidden in "the most modest house in the suburbs of a really kind of rough-and-tumble French town," Finkel said. Breitwieser worked sporadically as a waiter but was often unemployed, with Finkel describing him as a "freeloader" who "revelled in this chamber that felt like a room in the Louvre."
Finkel tells the story in his book The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime and a Dangerous Obsession. The author started a correspondence with Breitwieser more than a decade ago, leading to extensive interviews and even visits to museums Breitwieser has stolen from.
Psychological reports, seen by Finkel, corroborated Breitwieser's insistence that he stole not for monetary gain, but "out of love" for the art, and to surround himself with beautiful objects.
He never tried to sell any of that art he plundered in those early years, and just wanted "to live in a spot that felt like a treasure chest," Finkel said.
Breitwieser even objected to being called an art thief, he added.
"He'd really like to be called a collector, an art collector — maybe with a very unusual acquisition style," Finkel told Bresnahan.
Thieves 'stole like ghosts'
The book explains that Breitwieser had a comfortable upbringing in France's Alsace region, surrounded by beautiful works of art and antiques inherited from his father's side of the family.
But when his parents had a bitter break-up in Breitwieser's teens, he lost contact with his father — and all of that art.
Years later, he would tell Finkel that stealing was a way to replace it. One of the first things he stole was an antique pistol dating back to the 1600s, which he described to Finkel as "something nicer than anything his father had owned."
Rather than feeling guilty over the theft, Finkel said Breitwieser was pleased to possess this beautiful antique, and wanted more.
Breitwieser would focus on the object he wanted to steal, while his girlfriend, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, "would take a look at the larger picture," Finkel said.
They wore second-hand designer clothing to look like well-off tourists, and struck in the middle of the day when staff were rotating to eat lunch. The pair avoided the main flow of foot traffic and remained largely silent, using hand signals or the occasional cough as a warning. When he reached the item he wanted, he often slipped it under the waistband of his trousers, hidden at the small of his back beneath his overcoat.
"It just was like this dance between the two of them," Finkel said
On one occasion, Breitwieser unscrewed 30 individual screws to open a display case — leaping away whenever his accomplice warned him that someone was coming.
Breitwieser's approach was informed by his own experience working as a security guard, right after he graduated high school. He told Finkel in that job, he learned that the art on the wall fades into the background after a while — and staff are focused on the tourists walking by.
"He just always tried to have his body motion and his facial expressions look as innocuous and innocent as possible," Finkel said.
"He and Anne-Catherine stole like ghosts."
'The long and hard downfall'
As the years passed and their collection grew, Kleinklaus grew more nervous that they would be caught, Finkel said.
"She started insisting that fingerprints … and all traces of their presence should be erased," he said.
In November 2001, Finkel said that Breitwieser returned to a museum in Lucerne, Switzerland, to remove fingerprints from his theft of an antique bugle. A security guard recognized him from the day of the theft, and he was arrested.
"It was returning to a museum rather than stealing from it, that led to the long and hard downfall that followed," Finkel said.
In 2005, Breitwieser was sentenced to three years in prison for stealing the masterpieces, but ended up serving 26 months. Kleinklaus served six months, with another 12 months suspended, on charges of receiving stolen items. (The relatively shorter sentences were due to the non-violent nature of their crimes.)
His mother, Mireille Stengel, also faced trial that year. She claimed she did not initially recognize the value of the pieces, and thought her son had bought them at auctions and local flea markets. But upon his arrest, she buried or burned some priceless pieces, and threw others in the local canal — much of it was never recovered.
Even after he was released, Breitwieser returned to stealing, and this time did try to sell the stolen items. In March, he was sentenced to 34 months under house arrest, for thefts between 2016 and 2019.
"He finds himself driving by a museum. He finds himself parking the car, he finds himself walking inside, and then it's just going to be trouble from there," Finkel said.
"He told me, sort of half broken, that he realized he was only good at one thing in the world. And that thing was stealing art."
Audio produced by Howard Goldenthal.
