In Chap­ter 13, titled “The Art Thief,” Breitwieser’s obses­sion with art is evi­dent as he reflects on the impor­tance of fram­ing paint­ings to hon­or their dig­ni­ty, feel­ing that they appear undressed with­out frames. While wan­der­ing the streets of Mul­house, he dis­cov­ers a quaint arti­san fram­ing shop run by Chris­t­ian Meich­ler, a fel­low art enthu­si­ast. Their meet­ing sparks an unusu­al friend­ship, as Meich­ler res­onates with Breitwieser’s pas­sion for art, which serves as his refuge amid emo­tion­al tur­moil from his par­ents’ sep­a­ra­tion.

Meich­ler describes Bre­itwieser as sen­si­tive, dis­cern­ing, and an excep­tion­al aesthete—a per­spec­tive shared by his psy­chother­a­pist Schmidt, who rec­og­nizes Breitwieser’s big heart and love for beau­ti­ful objects despite his often harsh eval­u­a­tions. Luci­enne Schnei­der, anoth­er psy­chol­o­gist, diag­nosed Bre­itwieser with nar­cis­sism and obses­sion but also acknowl­edged his vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and sen­si­tiv­i­ty, sug­gest­ing that his art-relat­ed mis­con­duct stems from psy­cho­log­i­cal suf­fer­ing tied to his deep attach­ment to art.

Both men admire exu­ber­ant Euro­pean oil paint­ings from the Renais­sance and Baroque peri­ods. Meich­ler sees these art­works as embod­i­ments of dreams and poet­ry, while Bre­itwieser, ini­tial­ly qui­et, reveals his gen­uine enthu­si­asm for art, demon­strat­ing a cul­ti­vat­ed appre­ci­a­tion beyond mere mon­e­tary val­ue. He ini­tial­ly mis­rep­re­sents his famil­ial con­nec­tion to the artist Robert Bre­itwieser and the ori­gins of his col­lec­tion, claim­ing he buys them at auc­tions. Yet, he is most­ly sin­cere with Meich­ler, who oper­ates under a code of dis­cre­tion cru­cial in his pro­fes­sion.

The rela­tion­ship deep­ens, lead­ing to sev­er­al fram­ing com­mis­sions, includ­ing Bre­itwieser’s first stolen paint­ing, a por­trait of an elder­ly woman. How­ev­er, cau­tion begins to slip through as the friend­ship grows. After the fram­ing of a piece, which is dis­played pub­licly, Bre­itwieser rec­og­nizes the risk in let­ting his guard down. He includes lies to main­tain the friend­ship, claim­ing he’s too ner­vous to trans­port paint­ings. Meich­ler, unaware of Breitwieser’s noto­ri­ous back­ground, finds a kin­dred spir­it in the young man, who shares his love for art and dreams about col­lect­ing.

Ulti­mate­ly, Meich­ler warns that an obses­sive desire for art could lead Bre­itwieser down a treach­er­ous path, hint­ing at the dan­gers of his fer­vor for col­lect­ing art. Their bond exem­pli­fies an intense, albeit pre­car­i­ous, con­nec­tion over their shared pas­sion, with Meich­ler sens­ing the impend­ing trou­ble with­out real­iz­ing the full truth about Breitwieser’s illic­it activ­i­ties.