In Chap­ter 25 of The Art Thief, Breitwieser’s obses­sion with acquir­ing stolen art reach­es its most intense phase, push­ing him to under­take a series of increas­ing­ly dar­ing heists. His ear­li­er small-scale thefts are just the begin­ning, with Bre­itwieser secur­ing items like a sil­ver sug­ar bowl, a pair of Com­mu­nion chal­ices, a stained-glass win­dow­pane, a soup tureen, and a com­mem­o­ra­tive medal­lion, all while deceiv­ing Anne-Cather­ine about his crim­i­nal activ­i­ties. His first real break­through comes when he breaks his own per­son­al record, steal­ing ten pieces in a sin­gle day, includ­ing a teapot and sev­er­al valu­able sil­ver cups. Each suc­cess­ful crime brings with it an adren­a­line rush, dri­ving him fur­ther into the dan­ger­ous world of art theft and increas­ing his appetite for more valu­able pieces.

Breitwieser’s crim­i­nal activ­i­ties esca­late dra­mat­i­cal­ly when he revis­its the Gruyères Cas­tle, a place of sig­nif­i­cance from his past with Anne-Cather­ine, and tar­gets a mas­sive tapes­try he has long desired. Although Anne-Cather­ine grows increas­ing­ly appre­hen­sive about the risks, Bre­itwieser is unde­terred, deter­mined to take the tapes­try for him­self. He devis­es a clever plan to help him trans­port the large art­work, wrap­ping a duf­fel bag around his leg to act as an addi­tion­al means of car­ry­ing it. Despite strug­gling to con­ceal the tapes­try and maneu­ver it stealth­ily, Bre­itwieser suc­ceeds in hoist­ing it out of a win­dow and retriev­ing it from the mud­dy ground below. This heist marks a piv­otal moment in his jour­ney as an art thief, as it push­es him fur­ther into dan­ger­ous ter­ri­to­ry, test­ing his resource­ful­ness and deter­mi­na­tion.

Not con­tent with mere­ly col­lect­ing art­work, Bre­itwieser embarks on an even bold­er heist—stealing a stat­ue of the Vir­gin Mary from the Saint Sebas­t­ian Chapel. Seiz­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty while Anne-Cather­ine is away at work, he takes her car with­out ask­ing and trans­ports the mas­sive 150-pound stat­ue. After unbolt­ing the stat­ue and suc­cess­ful­ly remov­ing it from the chapel, Bre­itwieser is thrilled by the act of theft, but his joy is short-lived when Anne-Cather­ine dis­cov­ers the incense scent in her car and express­es her anger at his unau­tho­rized use of it. Though her dis­ap­proval grows, Bre­itwieser remains dri­ven by his pas­sion for acquir­ing stolen art, and the con­se­quences of his actions seem to mat­ter less and less to him. He becomes increas­ing­ly fix­at­ed on his col­lec­tion, unable to rec­og­nize the destruc­tive path he is on.

As Breitwieser’s col­lec­tion grows in size, his neglect for the items becomes more appar­ent, lead­ing to the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the stolen art he once cher­ished. The Gruyères tapes­try, once a source of pride, is stuffed care­less­ly under his bed, while a prized apothe­cary paint­ing warps due to improp­er stor­age. Even though he tries to repair the dam­age, his lack of skill in restor­ing art only wors­ens the sit­u­a­tion, result­ing in the destruc­tion of a ceram­ic plat­ter and a small still-life paint­ing. These care­less loss­es reflect a shift in his rela­tion­ship with art—what was once a pas­sion­ate obses­sion has now become a com­mod­i­ty that he hoards reck­less­ly, dimin­ish­ing its intrin­sic val­ue.

Anne-Cather­ine, wit­ness­ing the trans­for­ma­tion of their attic from a gallery of stolen mas­ter­pieces to a clut­tered mess of for­got­ten trea­sures, strug­gles with her grow­ing dis­sat­is­fac­tion. She can no longer ignore the com­pul­sive nature of Breitwieser’s behav­ior, which has spi­raled beyond their ini­tial shared love of art and into an obses­sion that has cor­rupt­ed both their lives. Despite her increas­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment, Anne-Cather­ine does not leave him, and their rela­tion­ship con­tin­ues as they both enter their thir­ties. What was once a space filled with stolen beau­ty now feels suf­fo­cat­ing and chaot­ic, mir­ror­ing the col­lapse of their ideals and the moral decay that has crept into their lives. Their shared dream of pre­serv­ing art has been lost, replaced by the relent­less pur­suit of theft and secre­cy, and they are now trapped in a cycle of crim­i­nal­i­ty and emo­tion­al tur­moil.