Chap­ter 20 of The Art Thief offers a deep­er explo­ration of the ten­sion between Anne-Cather­ine and Bre­itwieser as they con­tin­ue their art-steal­ing spree across Europe. By ear­ly 1997, the cou­ple has been involved in art theft for near­ly two years, con­sis­tent­ly steal­ing pieces from muse­ums over the week­ends. While Bre­itwieser still sees their crim­i­nal rela­tion­ship as a shared pas­sion, Anne-Cather­ine becomes increas­ing­ly weary and begins long­ing for a break from their illic­it lifestyle. She feels con­flict­ed, trapped in a cycle of crim­i­nal­i­ty that has con­sumed much of her life, yet her com­mit­ment to Bre­itwieser keeps her from aban­don­ing him. The sit­u­a­tion grows more intense when Anne-Cather­ine reads a chill­ing head­line in the news­pa­per about a police raid on muse­ums in Nor­mandy. The raid shakes her, and she becomes over­whelmed by the con­se­quences of their actions, prompt­ing the cou­ple to retreat back home in fear of get­ting caught.

For Bre­itwieser, Anne-Catherine’s win­ter vaca­tion becomes a strate­gic oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue their crim­i­nal oper­a­tions unde­tect­ed. Instead of halt­ing their art thefts, he believes they can out­smart the author­i­ties by mov­ing their activ­i­ties to dif­fer­ent coun­tries. His rea­son­ing is that Euro­pean law enforce­ment faces obsta­cles like lan­guage bar­ri­ers and lack of infor­ma­tion-shar­ing between nations, mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult for them to track down crim­i­nals oper­at­ing in mul­ti­ple coun­tries. With this in mind, the two decide to trav­el to Bel­gium for a week­end heist, as Bre­itwieser has nev­er stolen art in that coun­try. Their plan is to eval­u­ate secu­ri­ty mea­sures and poten­tial­ly expand their thefts fur­ther when Anne-Cather­ine has more free time in the future. This tac­tic, while dan­ger­ous, appears to offer a way for them to con­tin­ue their lifestyle with­out fac­ing imme­di­ate con­se­quences.

Breitwieser’s obses­sion with col­lect­ing stolen art becomes increas­ing­ly appar­ent as the attic in their home fills up with hun­dreds of price­less items. The stolen art­works have come to define him, and his sense of self is tied direct­ly to the pieces he has stolen over the years. Draw­ing on insights from psy­cho­an­a­lyst Wern­er Muen­ster­berg­er, it becomes clear that Breitwieser’s behav­ior reflects a broad­er psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion com­mon among col­lec­tors. Col­lec­tors like him often feel dis­con­nect­ed from the world around them, and steal­ing becomes a way to estab­lish a sense of con­trol and iden­ti­ty. Art theft allows Bre­itwieser to escape his per­son­al strug­gles, and in a way, the stolen pieces give him a sense of own­er­ship and pow­er that he lacks in oth­er areas of his life. Expert Erin Thomp­son expands on this idea, not­ing that many art thieves become more attached to the stolen items than their legit­i­mate own­ers, cre­at­ing a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for their ille­gal actions. As the col­lec­tion grows, so does Breitwieser’s obses­sion, rein­forc­ing the destruc­tive nature of his com­pul­sive behav­ior.

Though Bre­itwieser has nev­er been caught, he knows that his crim­i­nal suc­cess can­not last for­ev­er. Every stolen piece, every heist, comes with the loom­ing threat of being dis­cov­ered. The couple’s dri­ve to Brus­sels is delib­er­ate, as they avoid major high­ways to reduce the risk of being detect­ed. They jour­ney through back roads, blend­ing into the sur­round­ings as they make their way toward their next tar­get. Once in Brus­sels, they arrive at the Art & His­to­ry Muse­um, which Bre­itwieser con­sid­ers a small­er ver­sion of the Lou­vre. He is deter­mined to steal from the muse­um, see­ing it as the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to exe­cute a theft with­out get­ting caught. With every­thing in place, Bre­itwieser feels con­fi­dent, ready to pull off what he imag­ines will be the per­fect heist. How­ev­er, even as he pre­pares, he can­not shake the aware­ness that his increas­ing­ly reck­less behav­ior could soon lead to a down­fall, set­ting the stage for the events that fol­low.