In Feb­ru­ary 1997, Stéphane Bre­itwieser and his girl­friend, Anne-Cather­ine Klein­klaus, vis­it the Rubens House in Antwerp, Bel­gium, set­ting the stage for a metic­u­lous­ly planned theft. They blend in with oth­er tourists, enjoy­ing the art around them while Bre­itwieser sizes up secu­ri­ty mea­sures and plans his heist. The cou­ple stands out not for their appearance—Anne-Catherine is chicly dressed, while Bre­itwieser wears a styl­ish but slight­ly over­sized overcoat—but for their focus on what they real­ly desire: an ivory sculp­ture of Adam and Eve that Bre­itwieser had pre­vi­ous­ly spot­ted dur­ing a solo recon­nais­sance trip.

The sculp­ture is sealed with­in a plex­i­glass dis­play case fas­tened to a stur­dy base, but Bre­itwieser has dis­cov­ered a crit­i­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty: it can be accessed by unscrew­ing two tricky screws hid­den at the back of the box. While the muse­um staff patrols the space, there’s a rou­tine that leaves gaps in their super­vi­sion, espe­cial­ly dur­ing busy lunchtimes. As tourists cir­cu­late, Bre­itwieser skill­ful­ly blends into the role of an art admir­er, feign­ing con­tem­pla­tion while secret­ly itch­ing to exe­cute his plan.

Once the gallery clears, Bre­itwieser springs into action, using a Swiss Army knife to unfas­ten the screws while remain­ing alert to the shift­ing pres­ence of a secu­ri­ty guard. Anne-Cather­ine dis­creet­ly mon­i­tors the hall, ensur­ing no one is watch­ing as Bre­itwieser works method­i­cal­ly to free the sculp­ture. He man­ages to remove both screws, feel­ing the sharp excite­ment of the heist with­in safer yet tense moments of wait­ing for a dis­trac­tion.

Final­ly, he seizes the sculp­ture, tuck­ing it into the waist­band of his pants and cov­er­ing it with his coat. He leaves the plex­i­glass box behind, know­ing he can­not linger. With the museum’s tur­moil around him, he steps out, main­tain­ing a seem­ing­ly calm demeanor as he cross­es through the muse­um grounds.

Once out­side, Bre­itwieser and Anne-Cather­ine enter their parked car, a mid­night blue Opel Tigra. The eupho­ria of their suc­cess surges as they dri­ve away, elat­ed to be young, free, and thriv­ing after com­mit­ting the auda­cious theft. Their thrill and return to nor­mal­cy sig­ni­fy a cathar­tic escape from their planned crim­i­nal act.