April 4, 2025 • 10 mins
📚 Welcome to BookKast – Bestsellers in Minutes!
In today’s episode, we dive into The Art Thief by Michael Finkel — a gripping true story of love, crime, and dangerous obsession.
🎠What’s inside this thrilling bestseller? We’ll tell you the fascinating tale of Stéphane Breitwieser, the world’s most prolific art thief who stole over 300 priceless artworks from museums across Europe — not for money, but for beauty. His obsession, fueled by childhood influences, psychological complexities, and a near-mythical love for art, led to one of the most extraordinary crime stories ever told.
🖼️ In this video, you’ll learn: The early life of Stéphane Breitwieser and what led him to crime His relationship with his partner-in-crime, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus How he pulled off some of the boldest heists in broad daylight The twisted psychology behind stealing not for money, but for passion The tragic end: how hundreds of irreplaceable artworks were destroyed in a desperate act by his mother
🎧 Why this episode? Because The Art Thief is more than true crime — it’s a psychological thriller that will make you question the fine line between passion and obsession, admiration and possession.
🔥 If you’re a fan of true crime, art history, and psychological thrillers, this story will keep you hooked!
👉 Watch until the end to understand why this book has become an international bestseller and why Michael Finkel’s storytelling is simply masterful.
In today’s episode, we dive into The Art Thief by Michael Finkel — a gripping true story of love, crime, and dangerous obsession.
🎠What’s inside this thrilling bestseller? We’ll tell you the fascinating tale of Stéphane Breitwieser, the world’s most prolific art thief who stole over 300 priceless artworks from museums across Europe — not for money, but for beauty. His obsession, fueled by childhood influences, psychological complexities, and a near-mythical love for art, led to one of the most extraordinary crime stories ever told.
🖼️ In this video, you’ll learn: The early life of Stéphane Breitwieser and what led him to crime His relationship with his partner-in-crime, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus How he pulled off some of the boldest heists in broad daylight The twisted psychology behind stealing not for money, but for passion The tragic end: how hundreds of irreplaceable artworks were destroyed in a desperate act by his mother
🎧 Why this episode? Because The Art Thief is more than true crime — it’s a psychological thriller that will make you question the fine line between passion and obsession, admiration and possession.
🔥 If you’re a fan of true crime, art history, and psychological thrillers, this story will keep you hooked!
👉 Watch until the end to understand why this book has become an international bestseller and why Michael Finkel’s storytelling is simply masterful.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, everybody, welcome back to book Cast. You know
(00:02):
how we do it here, right, we bring you the
best sellers, but like in minutes.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
That's right, best sellers in minutes. I'm Sarah Adam Hall,
and today we're diving deep into The Art Thief, a
true story of love, crime and a dangerous obsession by
Michael Finkel.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Ooh, this one's juicy. I know a lot of you
requested it, and I gotta say it's a real page turner.
It's nonfiction though, like a true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Kind of thing it is. It reads like a thriller though,
you know, you can't put it down.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
So we're talking about Stephan Breitweiser, right, this guy was
like a master.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Art thief exactly. He stole hundreds of pieces of art
from museums all over Europe for almost a decade. He
was basically unstoppable.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah, and Finkle does such a great job like really
getting into Breitweiser's head, you know, figuring out what made
this guy tick, using interviews and court documents and even
Breitweiser's own book, Confessions of an Art Thief.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, that's an interesting source too, because you get his perspective.
But like you have to take it with a grain
of salt, right.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Totally, So where do we even begin with a story
like this? Like what makes someone become an art thief
of this magnitude?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I think you got to go back to his childhood.
Finkel talks about how Breitweiser grew up in Elzas, France.
His family actually had an appreciation for antiques, like his
father was a big collector, furniture, weapons, paintings, watches, ivory,
you name it.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Wow. So he was surrounded by beautiful objects from a
young age.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Exactly, and I think that planted a seed, you know,
this fascination with the past and with beautiful historical things.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
But it wasn't all rosy, right, Like, his childhood wasn't perfect, right.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
He was described as a moody kid, kind of prone
to anxiety, and apparently his parents' relationship was pretty rocky.
His dad was really strict and his mom was kind
of all over the place emotionally.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So not exactly a stable home life. Did that contribute
to his, you know, his later actions, It's hard.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
To say for sure, but the book definitely suggests that
it played a role. And then when his parents divorced
nineteen ninety one, his dad took all the antiques with him.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Oh wow, I bet that was tough for him.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, it sounds like he felt a real sense of
loss and maybe even some resentment towards his father, like
his dad had taken away something that was really important
to him.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So this fascination with antiques, a troubled family life, was
art theft like his first brush with the law.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Actually no. Figgle talks about how he got into some
petty crime as a teenager, like shoplifting clothes and stuff,
and then right before he turned twenty, he got a
job as a museum guard.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
A museum guard that's ironic, right, And.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
It's like that job kind of gave him the blueprint
for his future crimes. He learned about museum security procedures,
saw the weakness's first hand, and he actually stole something
from the museum he was guarding.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So he started small. But what was the real turning point?
When did he go from petty thief to this master
art theef that we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
The book points to a very specific moment in nineteen
ninety four, he visited the Fan Museum and saw this
flint lock apistol, an early eighteenth century one, and he
just fell in love with it, like head over heels.
It wasn't just admiration, it was this intense need to
possess it.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Wow, almost like an obsession.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And it was his girlfriend at the time, and Katherine Kleinklaus,
who encouraged him to steal it. She was like, just
take it, so they did, and that seems to have
been the start of his art thieving career.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
And Catherine, huh, she becomes a pretty important figure in
this story right now.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Oh yeah, Initially she was hesitant, but then she became
his accomplice and look out for most of his heists,
like they were.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
A team Bonnie and Clyde of the art world. Okay,
so let's talk about the how how did he actually
manage to steal all this art? He wasn't exactly breaking
into vaults and stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
No, not at all. And that's one of the things
makes him so fascinating. He didn't see himself as a
violent criminal. He compared himself to guys who pulled off big,
flashy heists like the one at the Isabella Stored Gardner Museum.
He saw himself as different.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Different in that he wasn't really motivated by money.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Right exactly. It wasn't about the money for him. He
was obsessed with beauty and history. He stole pieces that
he felt a personal connection to, and often they weren't
even the most valuable things in the museum. He'd particulously
plan everything out beforehand, like casing the joint. He'd watch
the guards look for weaknesses in the security systems, you know,
(04:19):
like flaws in the display cases.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So he was exploiting oversights rather than using force.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Clever very Finkel describes this incident at the Reuben's house
at Antwerp. The Adam and Eves sculpture there was housed
in a plexiglass box and Breitweiser noticed that it was
only secured with two screws.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Two screws, are you all right? So he came back
blunted in with the tourists and over the course of
ten minutes unscrewed the box and swiped the sculpture. Didn't
even wear gloves, and Catherine was his lookout and they
got away clean.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
That's incredible, I mean, it's audacious. But how did he
justify all of this to himself? Like did he have
some sort of twisted moral code? He did have a
justification yet, but it's pretty self serving. He saw museums
as prisons for art, and he believed that he was
liberating these pieces, like he was doing them.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
A favor, liberating them. That's a bit of a stretch totally.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
He romanticized the whole thing. He pictured himself living with
all this art in his attic, having his bed right
next to some masterpiece so he can wake up and
look at it. He even claimed to experience Stendhall syndrome.
You know that thing where you're so overwhelmed by art
that you have a physical reaction.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I've heard of that. Yeah, But did anyone actually believe
that he was experiencing that.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Not really. Most experts thought he was just making excuses.
They figured he was addicted to the thrill of stealing.
But there was this Swiss psychotherapist, Michelle Schmidt, who assessed
him and gained to a different conclusion.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
What did Schmidt think was going on?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Schmidt said that Breitfeiser wasn't a kleptomaniac, even though he
was definitely a menace to society and pretty delusional. He
pointed out that kleptomaniac steal compulsively. They don't care what
they take. They just need to steal, and they usually
feel guilty afterwards. Bredefeiser was different. He was very selective
about what he stole, and he didn't feel any remorse.
He was actually proud of his collection.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So what was his motivation then? According to Schmidt.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Schmidt concluded that Bridefeisser genuinely stole for the love of art.
He felt a real emotional connection to these pieces. And
Finkel also suggests that maybe he was trying to one
up his father, you know, like subconsciously proving that he
could amass an even better collection than his dad had.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Fascinating, So where did he keep all this stolen.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Art his attic? He basically turned it into his own
private museum, hundreds of painting, sculptures, you name it. And
he would spend hours at the library researching the pieces
he'd stolen, learning about their history in Providence.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Wow, so he was a thief but also a scholar
in a way. Did he ever get sloppy though? Like,
did his confidence ever get the best of him?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Oh? Yeah, he definitely got bolder over time. He started
stealing during guided tours, which is crazy risky, and he
even started leaving the empty frames behind as like a
calling card.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That's kind of cocky, right.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
And law enforcement started to catch on and inspector in
Switzerland Alexandra vonder Mule noticed a pattern in the thefts,
the time of day, the types of objects, his preference
for Flemish art, and the French Art crime Unit was
also on the case.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
So the walls were closing in. Did Breitweiser and and
Catherine know they were being watched?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
They did, but they thought they were untouchable, like they
were too smart to get caught. There's this incredible story
in the book about how Breitweiser stole this really important
painting Mad Linden de Frost from the Blas Museum. He
just took it right off the wall, tuck it down
his pants and walked out. You're kidding, I'm not. It's wild,
But eventually their luck ran out. In nineteen ninety seven,
(07:46):
they tried to steal something from a small private gallery
in Lucerne and they got caught.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
After all those daring museum heists, they got caught at
a little gallery.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yep. Just goes to show that you never know what's
going to trip you up. Surprisingly, though, they got off
pretty easy, suspended sentences, a small fine and a band
from Switzerland for three years. But it really shook and
Catherine up. She was done with the whole art thief thing.
She gave Breitweiser an ultimatum, stop stealing or I'm out.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Did he listen to her.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Nope, He couldn't help himself. He was addicted to the
thrill of it all. Even after they moved to Switzerland
for a new job, he started stealing again. The book
describes this incident where he tried to steal a tapestry
from Griere's castle and for a moment he felt bad
about it, like he realized he was being disrespectful to
the art, but that didn't stop him. His final theft
(08:35):
was a bugle from the Wagner Museum in Lucerne in
two thousand and one, and that's what finally landed him
in real trouble.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
What happened after that.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Things got really crazy. When Breitweiser was arrested, his mother,
Mariel Stengel, totally freaked out. She decided to destroy all
the evidence. She went up to the attic and systematically
destroyed almost everything through some stuff in the rown Ryan
Canal tossed some more on the side of the road,
even burned some of it.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
She destroyed hundreds of pieces of priceless art.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, she was desperate to protect her son and herself.
She even admitted to the police that she'd done it.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
That's insane.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
It is so much amazing art lost forever because of
her actions. The police did manage to recover over one
hundred items from the canal. They found the tapestry and
some other stuff, but most of it was gone. When
Breawiser found out what his mother had done, he was devastated.
He even tried to kill himself in prison.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Wow, so it happened to him and his mom.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
They both went to trial and got sentence for their crimes.
Breitweiser tried to rebuild his life after prison. He wrote
his own book and even tried to become an art
security consultant. Imagine that ironic, right, But he never really
got over his compulsion to steal. The book makes it
clear that he still struggled with it. He even went
back to the Ruben's house years later, the place where
(09:51):
it all began. Kind of a sad ending.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Really, it is so to wrap things up, what's the
big takeaway from The Art Thief. What makes this story
so compelling.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I think it's the psychology of it all, Like what
drives someone to become a master art thief? Not for
the money, but for the love of art. That's what
makes Breitweiser's story so fascinating and why this book is
such a bestseller.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, it makes you think about obsession, about the value
of art, and about the gray areas between appreciation and possession.
It's a wild ride from start to finish, that's for sure,
and we covered it all right here in just minutes.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
That's right, bestsellers in minutes only on book casts.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And if you want to dive even deeper into this
twisted tail, I highly recommend checking out The Art Thief
by Michael Finkel. It's an unforgettable read.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I second that.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
All right, everyone, that's it for today. We'll be back
next time with another bestseller, broken down and delivered to
you in minutes. Until then, happy reading.
All right, everybody, welcome back to book Cast. You know
(00:02):
how we do it here, right, we bring you the
best sellers, but like in minutes.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
That's right, best sellers in minutes. I'm Sarah Adam Hall,
and today we're diving deep into The Art Thief, a
true story of love, crime and a dangerous obsession by
Michael Finkel.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Ooh, this one's juicy. I know a lot of you
requested it, and I gotta say it's a real page turner.
It's nonfiction though, like a true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Kind of thing it is. It reads like a thriller though,
you know, you can't put it down.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
So we're talking about Stephan Breitweiser, right, this guy was
like a master.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Art thief exactly. He stole hundreds of pieces of art
from museums all over Europe for almost a decade. He
was basically unstoppable.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah, and Finkle does such a great job like really
getting into Breitweiser's head, you know, figuring out what made
this guy tick, using interviews and court documents and even
Breitweiser's own book, Confessions of an Art Thief.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, that's an interesting source too, because you get his perspective.
But like you have to take it with a grain
of salt, right.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Totally, So where do we even begin with a story
like this? Like what makes someone become an art thief
of this magnitude?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I think you got to go back to his childhood.
Finkel talks about how Breitweiser grew up in Elzas, France.
His family actually had an appreciation for antiques, like his
father was a big collector, furniture, weapons, paintings, watches, ivory,
you name it.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Wow. So he was surrounded by beautiful objects from a
young age.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Exactly, and I think that planted a seed, you know,
this fascination with the past and with beautiful historical things.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
But it wasn't all rosy, right, Like, his childhood wasn't perfect, right.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
He was described as a moody kid, kind of prone
to anxiety, and apparently his parents' relationship was pretty rocky.
His dad was really strict and his mom was kind
of all over the place emotionally.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So not exactly a stable home life. Did that contribute
to his, you know, his later actions, It's hard.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
To say for sure, but the book definitely suggests that
it played a role. And then when his parents divorced
nineteen ninety one, his dad took all the antiques with him.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Oh wow, I bet that was tough for him.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, it sounds like he felt a real sense of
loss and maybe even some resentment towards his father, like
his dad had taken away something that was really important
to him.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So this fascination with antiques, a troubled family life, was
art theft like his first brush with the law.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Actually no. Figgle talks about how he got into some
petty crime as a teenager, like shoplifting clothes and stuff,
and then right before he turned twenty, he got a
job as a museum guard.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
A museum guard that's ironic, right, And.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
It's like that job kind of gave him the blueprint
for his future crimes. He learned about museum security procedures,
saw the weakness's first hand, and he actually stole something
from the museum he was guarding.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So he started small. But what was the real turning point?
When did he go from petty thief to this master
art theef that we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
The book points to a very specific moment in nineteen
ninety four, he visited the Fan Museum and saw this
flint lock apistol, an early eighteenth century one, and he
just fell in love with it, like head over heels.
It wasn't just admiration, it was this intense need to
possess it.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Wow, almost like an obsession.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And it was his girlfriend at the time, and Katherine Kleinklaus,
who encouraged him to steal it. She was like, just
take it, so they did, and that seems to have
been the start of his art thieving career.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
And Catherine, huh, she becomes a pretty important figure in
this story right now.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Oh yeah, Initially she was hesitant, but then she became
his accomplice and look out for most of his heists,
like they were.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
A team Bonnie and Clyde of the art world. Okay,
so let's talk about the how how did he actually
manage to steal all this art? He wasn't exactly breaking
into vaults and stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
No, not at all. And that's one of the things
makes him so fascinating. He didn't see himself as a
violent criminal. He compared himself to guys who pulled off big,
flashy heists like the one at the Isabella Stored Gardner Museum.
He saw himself as different.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Different in that he wasn't really motivated by money.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Right exactly. It wasn't about the money for him. He
was obsessed with beauty and history. He stole pieces that
he felt a personal connection to, and often they weren't
even the most valuable things in the museum. He'd particulously
plan everything out beforehand, like casing the joint. He'd watch
the guards look for weaknesses in the security systems, you know,
(04:19):
like flaws in the display cases.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So he was exploiting oversights rather than using force.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Clever very Finkel describes this incident at the Reuben's house
at Antwerp. The Adam and Eves sculpture there was housed
in a plexiglass box and Breitweiser noticed that it was
only secured with two screws.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Two screws, are you all right? So he came back
blunted in with the tourists and over the course of
ten minutes unscrewed the box and swiped the sculpture. Didn't
even wear gloves, and Catherine was his lookout and they
got away clean.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
That's incredible, I mean, it's audacious. But how did he
justify all of this to himself? Like did he have
some sort of twisted moral code? He did have a
justification yet, but it's pretty self serving. He saw museums
as prisons for art, and he believed that he was
liberating these pieces, like he was doing them.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
A favor, liberating them. That's a bit of a stretch totally.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
He romanticized the whole thing. He pictured himself living with
all this art in his attic, having his bed right
next to some masterpiece so he can wake up and
look at it. He even claimed to experience Stendhall syndrome.
You know that thing where you're so overwhelmed by art
that you have a physical reaction.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I've heard of that. Yeah, But did anyone actually believe
that he was experiencing that.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Not really. Most experts thought he was just making excuses.
They figured he was addicted to the thrill of stealing.
But there was this Swiss psychotherapist, Michelle Schmidt, who assessed
him and gained to a different conclusion.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
What did Schmidt think was going on?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Schmidt said that Breitfeiser wasn't a kleptomaniac, even though he
was definitely a menace to society and pretty delusional. He
pointed out that kleptomaniac steal compulsively. They don't care what
they take. They just need to steal, and they usually
feel guilty afterwards. Bredefeiser was different. He was very selective
about what he stole, and he didn't feel any remorse.
He was actually proud of his collection.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So what was his motivation then? According to Schmidt.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Schmidt concluded that Bridefeisser genuinely stole for the love of art.
He felt a real emotional connection to these pieces. And
Finkel also suggests that maybe he was trying to one
up his father, you know, like subconsciously proving that he
could amass an even better collection than his dad had.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Fascinating, So where did he keep all this stolen.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Art his attic? He basically turned it into his own
private museum, hundreds of painting, sculptures, you name it. And
he would spend hours at the library researching the pieces
he'd stolen, learning about their history in Providence.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Wow, so he was a thief but also a scholar
in a way. Did he ever get sloppy though? Like,
did his confidence ever get the best of him?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Oh? Yeah, he definitely got bolder over time. He started
stealing during guided tours, which is crazy risky, and he
even started leaving the empty frames behind as like a
calling card.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That's kind of cocky, right.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
And law enforcement started to catch on and inspector in
Switzerland Alexandra vonder Mule noticed a pattern in the thefts,
the time of day, the types of objects, his preference
for Flemish art, and the French Art crime Unit was
also on the case.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
So the walls were closing in. Did Breitweiser and and
Catherine know they were being watched?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
They did, but they thought they were untouchable, like they
were too smart to get caught. There's this incredible story
in the book about how Breitweiser stole this really important
painting Mad Linden de Frost from the Blas Museum. He
just took it right off the wall, tuck it down
his pants and walked out. You're kidding, I'm not. It's wild,
But eventually their luck ran out. In nineteen ninety seven,
(07:46):
they tried to steal something from a small private gallery
in Lucerne and they got caught.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
After all those daring museum heists, they got caught at
a little gallery.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yep. Just goes to show that you never know what's
going to trip you up. Surprisingly, though, they got off
pretty easy, suspended sentences, a small fine and a band
from Switzerland for three years. But it really shook and
Catherine up. She was done with the whole art thief thing.
She gave Breitweiser an ultimatum, stop stealing or I'm out.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Did he listen to her.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Nope, He couldn't help himself. He was addicted to the
thrill of it all. Even after they moved to Switzerland
for a new job, he started stealing again. The book
describes this incident where he tried to steal a tapestry
from Griere's castle and for a moment he felt bad
about it, like he realized he was being disrespectful to
the art, but that didn't stop him. His final theft
(08:35):
was a bugle from the Wagner Museum in Lucerne in
two thousand and one, and that's what finally landed him
in real trouble.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
What happened after that.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Things got really crazy. When Breitweiser was arrested, his mother,
Mariel Stengel, totally freaked out. She decided to destroy all
the evidence. She went up to the attic and systematically
destroyed almost everything through some stuff in the rown Ryan
Canal tossed some more on the side of the road,
even burned some of it.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
She destroyed hundreds of pieces of priceless art.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, she was desperate to protect her son and herself.
She even admitted to the police that she'd done it.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
That's insane.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
It is so much amazing art lost forever because of
her actions. The police did manage to recover over one
hundred items from the canal. They found the tapestry and
some other stuff, but most of it was gone. When
Breawiser found out what his mother had done, he was devastated.
He even tried to kill himself in prison.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Wow, so it happened to him and his mom.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
They both went to trial and got sentence for their crimes.
Breitweiser tried to rebuild his life after prison. He wrote
his own book and even tried to become an art
security consultant. Imagine that ironic, right, But he never really
got over his compulsion to steal. The book makes it
clear that he still struggled with it. He even went
back to the Ruben's house years later, the place where
(09:51):
it all began. Kind of a sad ending.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Really, it is so to wrap things up, what's the
big takeaway from The Art Thief. What makes this story
so compelling.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I think it's the psychology of it all, Like what
drives someone to become a master art thief? Not for
the money, but for the love of art. That's what
makes Breitweiser's story so fascinating and why this book is
such a bestseller.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, it makes you think about obsession, about the value
of art, and about the gray areas between appreciation and possession.
It's a wild ride from start to finish, that's for sure,
and we covered it all right here in just minutes.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
That's right, bestsellers in minutes only on book casts.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And if you want to dive even deeper into this
twisted tail, I highly recommend checking out The Art Thief
by Michael Finkel. It's an unforgettable read.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I second that.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
All right, everyone, that's it for today. We'll be back
next time with another bestseller, broken down and delivered to
you in minutes. Until then, happy reading.
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