In the sec­tion titled “A Note on the Report­ing” from The Art Thief, the author recounts their exten­sive jour­ney into the life of Stéphane Bre­itwieser, one of the most pro­lif­ic art thieves in mod­ern his­to­ry. This jour­ney began in 2012 when the author first reached out to Bre­itwieser with a sim­ple let­ter ask­ing for an inter­view. At the time, Bre­itwieser had dis­tanced him­self from media engage­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Amer­i­can jour­nal­ists, and had not spo­ken pub­licly for sev­er­al years. The author was left in sus­pense for a long peri­od before receiv­ing a brief response, which ini­ti­at­ed a slow but steady exchange of let­ters and built a lev­el of trust between them. The slow pace of com­mu­ni­ca­tion added to the mys­tery sur­round­ing the fig­ure of Bre­itwieser and set the stage for an even­tu­al in-per­son meet­ing.

In May 2017, after five years of exchang­ing let­ters, Bre­itwieser agreed to meet the author in per­son, but only on his own terms. He insist­ed that no record­ings be made dur­ing their time togeth­er, ensur­ing com­plete pri­va­cy dur­ing their dis­cus­sions. The author trav­eled to Stras­bourg, then to the small town of Sav­erne, where they shared a meal at Tav­erne Katz, a quaint Alsa­t­ian restau­rant. Ini­tial­ly, Bre­itwieser was guard­ed, aware of near­by din­ers, but as the evening wore on, he became more relaxed, reveal­ing parts of his life and thoughts on the crimes he had com­mit­ted. Despite the ini­tial reserve, the con­ver­sa­tion took on a deep­er, more can­did nature as the evening pro­gressed, set­ting the stage for future inter­views in more pri­vate set­tings, includ­ing hotel rooms where Bre­itwieser could dis­cuss sen­si­tive mat­ters away from pub­lic scruti­ny.

As their rap­port devel­oped, the author began to gain a deep­er under­stand­ing of Breitwieser’s obses­sion with art. In a hotel room, Bre­itwieser imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nized a print by Jean Tingue­ly on the wall, show­cas­ing his deep under­stand­ing and appre­ci­a­tion of the art world. His con­nec­tion to art was not mere­ly intellectual—it was vis­cer­al. This con­nec­tion was reflect­ed in his crim­i­nal activ­i­ties, as the author wit­nessed first­hand his skills in theft when Bre­itwieser demon­strat­ed his abil­i­ty to sur­rep­ti­tious­ly take the author’s lap­top dur­ing their con­ver­sa­tion. Their meet­ings spanned more than forty hours, and with each ses­sion, the author gained increas­ing­ly valu­able insights into the mind of a man who, despite his crimes, seemed to view art as some­thing that tran­scend­ed own­er­ship and mon­ey.

The inves­ti­ga­tion also led the author to vis­it the sites where Bre­itwieser had com­mit­ted his infa­mous art thefts, each one pro­vid­ing a chill­ing reminder of the metic­u­lous­ness involved in his crimes. In 2023, the author attend­ed Breitwieser’s tri­al, where he faced charges for sell­ing stolen art. This tri­al marked a sig­nif­i­cant moment in the inves­ti­ga­tion, offer­ing a glimpse into the legal con­se­quences of Breitwieser’s actions. Through­out the inves­ti­ga­tion, the author con­duct­ed inter­views with fam­i­ly mem­bers, legal pro­fes­sion­als, and art experts, piec­ing togeth­er the var­i­ous facets of Breitwieser’s life and crimes. This revealed a com­plex char­ac­ter, a man whose love for art and obses­sion with pos­ses­sion drove him to steal valu­able works for rea­sons oth­er than mon­e­tary gain.

Breitwieser’s actions stand in stark con­trast to the tra­di­tion­al moti­va­tions of art thieves, who are typ­i­cal­ly dri­ven by finan­cial gain. Instead, Breitwieser’s moti­va­tions stemmed from a deep, almost com­pul­sive love for art, plac­ing him in a unique cat­e­go­ry among art crim­i­nals. His obses­sion with col­lect­ing beau­ti­ful works of art—whether they were in a muse­um, a pri­vate col­lec­tion, or a pub­lic space—mirrored the behav­ior of bib­lio­ma­ni­acs, indi­vid­u­als dri­ven by a need to col­lect rare and pre­cious books, not for prof­it but out of a deep appre­ci­a­tion and pos­ses­sive­ness. The chap­ter delves into this unique per­spec­tive, offer­ing a nuanced view of art crime and its inter­sec­tion with per­son­al obses­sion. The author uses this lens to chal­lenge con­ven­tion­al views of art theft, high­light­ing the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal fac­tors that can lead a per­son to com­mit such crimes. The result is a deeply engag­ing explo­ration of a fas­ci­nat­ing char­ac­ter, whose love for art led him down a dan­ger­ous and ille­gal path that would leave a last­ing mark on the art world.