Aesthetics are higher than ethics.
– Oscar Wilde

When I was on my recent beach holiday, I read a book a day. I locked-in quickly on the day I picked up The Art Thief by Michael Finkel. It was gripping.

In a nutshell, it’s the true-crime story of Swiss master art thief, Stéphane Breitwieser, and his girfriend, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus. Over the course of eight years, Breitwieser stole more than three hundred rare and precious objects, from paintings and ivory carvings to silver ware and weapons (he had a penchant for 16th century pieces). He targeted smaller museums and cathedrals all over Europe and the robberies occurred in broad daylight. His tools were nothing more than a Swiss army knife, stylish clothing, and his girlfriend’s designer handbag. As he later revealed, ‘…all forms of security have a weakness‘ and ‘…it isn’t action … that usually lands a thief in prison. It’s hesitation.’

Unlike most thieves, Breitwieser never stole for money. Instead, he kept all of the treasures in his attic bedroom, where he could ‘gorge’ on their beauty. Aesthetics were so important to him, that he revealed in one interview, “My mother bought furniture from Ikea and this crushed me…”

Instead of an art thief, Breitwieser prefers to be thought of as an art collector with an unorthodox acquistion style. Or, if you will, he’d like to be called an art liberator.

As a result of keeping the stolen pieces, Breitwieser was difficult to catch. Ordinarily, stolen art is recovered during the transfers and recovering items is prioritised over making arrests. Breitwieser was eventually caught (the details of how would be a spoiler!) but it is useful to note that as a true ‘collector’, there was no saturation point and he would have kept going. The art stolen was estimated to be worth as much as two billion dollars.

I’m loathe to share the fun facts from this book because they are absolutely astounding and spoil the story. All you need to know is that Finkel has carefully structured the reveals – it starts gently with a ‘get to know’ Breitwieser and Kleinklaus bit; picks up pace with the robberies and the increasingly valuable targets; moves into a section about stolen art generally (which is important in demonstrating why Breitwieser was different and therefore hard to catch); before finishing with a ‘where are they now’ section.

If you’re a fan of narrative nonfiction and haven’t read The Art Thief, don’t waste another moment.

Everyone thinks the same thing in a museum – it would be great to have this on my wall – but only Breitwieser is incapable of flicking the irrational idea away, a crumb for us is to him a boulder.

4/5

…he envisions her dimply smile blooming as they’re seated at the little restaurant in the medieval village of Rouffach, where they’d sometimes splurged on a proper date night. They always ordered a classic Alsatian tarte flambée.