Chap­ter 11 of The Art Thief takes a clos­er look at Breitwieser’s psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­file, explor­ing the under­ly­ing fac­tors that dri­ve his art thefts. Diag­nosed with nar­cis­sis­tic and anti­so­cial per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­ders, his behav­ior sug­gests a deep dis­con­nec­tion from soci­etal norms. Despite under­go­ing var­i­ous ther­a­py ses­sions, includ­ing con­sul­ta­tions with psy­chol­o­gist Schmidt, Bre­itwieser remains blind to the con­se­quences of his actions. Schmidt’s analy­sis reveals that Bre­itwieser views him­self as a kind of “seer” of beau­ty, believ­ing that he has a unique and supe­ri­or appre­ci­a­tion of art, one that tran­scends the ordi­nary. This sense of enti­tle­ment leads him to jus­ti­fy his thefts as acts of artis­tic redemp­tion, with no harm done as he avoids steal­ing from pri­vate homes or using vio­lence in his meth­ods. Instead, he choos­es his tar­gets carefully—museums, which he con­sid­ers fair game because they rep­re­sent an estab­lish­ment that does not appre­ci­ate art in the same way he believes it should be appre­ci­at­ed.

Psy­chol­o­gist César Redon­do also eval­u­ates Anne-Cather­ine, Breitwieser’s accom­plice, and finds that she is high­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to manip­u­la­tion. Accord­ing to Redon­do, Anne-Cather­ine lacks the emo­tion­al resilience to break free from Breitwieser’s influ­ence, which allows her to become increas­ing­ly involved in his ille­gal activ­i­ties. Both psy­chol­o­gists agree that while Bre­itwieser is aware of the moral impli­ca­tions of his actions, he ratio­nal­izes them, see­ing him­self as a part of a greater artis­tic lega­cy. Psy­chol­o­gist Brun­ner adds anoth­er lay­er of analy­sis, sug­gest­ing that Breitwieser’s behav­ior can­not be clas­si­fied as a psy­cho­log­i­cal ill­ness. Instead, his actions are root­ed in his per­son­al­i­ty, and they are an expres­sion of his dis­tort­ed worldview—one in which art theft is not only jus­ti­fi­able but is an exten­sion of his per­son­al phi­los­o­phy and artis­tic ide­ol­o­gy.

For Bre­itwieser, art theft is a con­tin­u­a­tion of his­tor­i­cal pat­terns of acqui­si­tion and appro­pri­a­tion. He often cites exam­ples from art his­to­ry, such as the Hors­es of Saint Mark, a set of stat­ues that have been stolen and repur­posed across sev­er­al empires, to sup­port his view that art has nev­er tru­ly belonged to any­one. This belief becomes a cru­cial part of his jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for steal­ing works of art—he sees him­self as a par­tic­i­pant in a long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of art theft, rather than a crim­i­nal. The fact that he is sim­ply con­tin­u­ing what he per­ceives to be a his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive gives him a sense of moral high ground. He feels that by tak­ing these works, he is not com­mit­ting a crime but rather right­ing the wrongs of art his­to­ry. This philo­soph­i­cal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion allows him to detach from the true con­se­quences of his actions, which include the irrepara­ble loss to pub­lic and pri­vate col­lec­tions, and the dam­age to the art world’s integri­ty.

By the end of the chap­ter, Bre­itwieser emerges as a com­plex char­ac­ter who remains con­vinced that he is part of a larg­er nar­ra­tive of artis­tic evo­lu­tion. While his repeat­ed thefts paint him as an enti­tled thief, dri­ven by a com­pul­sive need to pos­sess art, his self-jus­ti­fi­ca­tions make him believe that he is mere­ly fol­low­ing the exam­ple set by his­to­ry. His actions, dri­ven by a desire to col­lect and pos­sess, are cloaked in a veneer of artis­tic right­eous­ness, and he views his thefts as a right­ful con­tin­u­a­tion of the artis­tic lega­cy. The com­plex mix of enti­tle­ment, his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism, and self-delu­sion shapes Breitwieser’s iden­ti­ty as both a crim­i­nal and a self-pro­claimed art con­nois­seur. His psy­cho­log­i­cal make­up reveals the inter­nal con­flict between his desire for per­son­al ful­fill­ment through art and the soci­etal norms he dis­re­gards, mak­ing him a fas­ci­nat­ing yet moral­ly ambigu­ous char­ac­ter whose actions chal­lenge the bound­aries between artis­tic pas­sion and crim­i­nal­i­ty. This chap­ter ulti­mate­ly por­trays the moral com­plex­i­ty of Bre­itwieser, high­light­ing how per­son­al jus­ti­fi­ca­tion can lead one down a dan­ger­ous and destruc­tive path.