The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Finkel Michael

Author:Finkel, Michael [Finkel, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Art, History, Biography, Crime, Adult
ISBN: 9780525657323
Amazon: 0525657320
Goodreads: 62873378
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2023-06-22T07:00:00+00:00

22

Four months after the great silver haul, while touring the medieval city of Lucerne in the Swiss Alps, they stop at a private art gallery. They rarely steal from commercial galleries, and Anne-Catherine signals that it’s not time to try. The gallery is small, they’re the only visitors, and the two employees on duty, Anne-Catherine notes, are keeping a loose eye on them. “Don’t do anything,” she urges. “It doesn’t feel right.”

Her counsel is wise and he knows it. It’s also a hot day, Breitwieser has no jacket, and the gallery is across the street from the Lucerne central police station. The couple has no rules about stealing near the police, but it does seem like a bad omen.

And yet a radiant still life by the Dutch wizard Willem van Aelst is on display, unprotected, as if begging to be taken. Without a van Aelst in the attic his world isn’t complete. The danger seems manageable: the employees aren’t paying that much attention, and the door is a few strides away. He won’t remove the frame; a jacket isn’t necessary.

“Trust me,” he says softly to Anne-Catherine. “I know how to do this. I love you.” He pecks her on the lips, lifts the van Aelst off the wall, and tucks it under his arm like a baguette, and they leave, nothing to worry about. They’ve walked maybe twenty steps when a hand grabs his shoulder from behind, roughly, and yanks him around until he’s face-to-face with an employee from the gallery.

“What are you doing with that painting?” demands the man.

Breitwieser, stunned, can only stammer a half-formed excuse. He can’t recall exactly what he said, but he remembers the response: “Liar! I’m taking you to the police.” The employee’s grip on him firms.

Anne-Catherine could have run off, but she stays to plead for her boyfriend’s release. “Let him go. I’m begging you.”

If they weren’t so close to the station, they might have been able to talk their way out of it, or Breitwieser might have squirmed free. Instead, they are both arrested, and each escorted to a separate wing of the police station’s holding cells.

Confined in his basement cell, Breitwieser feels as if he were being held underwater, he can hardly breathe. He’d been painfully stupid, stealing like a clown. He should have listened to Anne-Catherine. Now, pressured by the police, she could confess all their crimes. The authorities will search his mother’s home; they may already be on the way. It is May 28, 1997, he’s not yet twenty-six years old, and his life is over. The night creeps by miserably.

In the morning, he’s loaded into a prison van, locked in a caged-off seat, for transport to the courthouse. Anne-Catherine is also on board, in her own cage. They’re able to discreetly exchange a few words. She hasn’t mentioned any other thefts, he learns. Their attic remains secret. Maybe there’s hope.

“It’s imperative that we agree on one thing,” he whispers to her. “This is the only time we’ve ever taken something.

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