Chap­ter 21 of The Art Thief delves into the com­plex­i­ty of Breitwieser’s obses­sion with steal­ing art, detail­ing his actions dur­ing an intense and thrilling heist at the Art & His­to­ry Muse­um in Brus­sels. Although ini­tial­ly unim­pressed by the col­lec­tion of medieval arti­facts, he becomes intrigued when he notices some­thing amiss—the arrange­ment of the items sug­gests a theft may have recent­ly occurred. His atten­tion is drawn to a card read­ing “objects removed for study,” giv­ing him the impres­sion that there’s a chance to pil­fer from the muse­um with­out being caught. Fueled by curios­i­ty and a strong com­pul­sion to steal, he begins prepar­ing for his next theft, armed with his trust­ed Swiss Army knife, ready to take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ty he believes is in front of him. Con­fi­dent in his abil­i­ty to avoid detec­tion, Bre­itwieser feels a rush of excite­ment at the thought of once again indulging in his crim­i­nal pas­sion.

As he makes his way through the muse­um, Breitwieser’s inter­est is piqued by a stun­ning dis­play of sil­ver works, includ­ing intri­cate chal­ices and a mag­nif­i­cent war­ship cen­ter­piece that were craft­ed in six­teenth-cen­tu­ry south­ern Ger­many. He exam­ines the works with great atten­tion, the beau­ty of the pieces adding fuel to his desire to steal. Upon notic­ing a blind spot in the secu­ri­ty cam­er­a’s cov­er­age over the dis­play, he begins to for­mu­late his plan. Draw­ing upon his past expe­ri­ence work­ing at a hard­ware store, he is able to skill­ful­ly dis­able the lock that secures the dis­play case, grant­i­ng him access to the cov­et­ed items. Feel­ing the adren­a­line course through him as he takes the trea­sures, he mar­vels at their beau­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly the two nau­tilus chal­ices, which leave him in awe and add to his grow­ing obses­sion with col­lect­ing.

Togeth­er with Anne-Cather­ine, his trust­ed accom­plice, Bre­itwieser man­ages to hide the stolen items, includ­ing the chal­ices and a coconut tankard, in their belong­ings. How­ev­er, in their haste, Bre­itwieser soon real­izes that he has left behind the tankard’s lid, which becomes a press­ing con­cern. Deter­mined to retrieve it, they quick­ly devise a plan to return to the muse­um. Anne-Cather­ine, with her quick think­ing, cre­ates a believ­able excuse, claim­ing she has lost an ear­ring, which grants them re-entry into the muse­um with­out sus­pi­cion. Once inside, they recov­er the lid and even take two addi­tion­al gob­lets, con­tin­u­ing their spree of art theft and fur­ther esca­lat­ing the risk they are tak­ing.

On their dri­ve back to France, Bre­itwieser begins to con­tem­plate their increas­ing­ly reck­less behav­ior and what steps they should take to avoid detec­tion. He decides that alter­ing their appear­ance would be a good tac­tic, opt­ing not to shave and advis­ing Anne-Cather­ine to change her hair­style as well. The ratio­nale is sim­ple: they need to blend in, and by doing so, they can con­tin­ue their thefts with­out draw­ing atten­tion to them­selves. They make anoth­er trip to the muse­um, where Bre­itwieser suc­cess­ful­ly steals more valu­able items, includ­ing the war­ship cen­ter­piece he had pre­vi­ous­ly admired. When con­front­ed by a guard, they remain calm and com­posed, claim­ing they were sim­ply on their way to the muse­um café, which effec­tive­ly deflects any sus­pi­cion.

After their thefts, they retreat to a hotel room, care­ful­ly keep­ing their activ­i­ties a secret and avoid­ing oth­er muse­ums for a few days to main­tain their cov­er. As the days pass, they con­tin­ue to steal, adding to their grow­ing col­lec­tion of sil­ver pieces, with a total of eleven stolen items acquired with­in just three weeks. The thrill of each suc­cess­ful heist embold­ens them, fuel­ing their desire to con­tin­ue their crim­i­nal escapades. Anne-Cather­ine, ever the accom­plice, shares in Breitwieser’s excite­ment, though the ten­sion of their actions grows. Dur­ing a vis­it to an antique shop after one of their lat­est thefts, Anne-Cather­ine checks the val­ue of a spe­cif­ic urn they had stolen. To her sur­prise, she dis­cov­ers that it is worth far more than they antic­i­pat­ed, which only deep­ens their sense of enti­tle­ment and fur­ther entrench­es them in their crim­i­nal lifestyle. Their obses­sion with art, com­bined with the esca­lat­ing val­ue of their stolen goods, makes it hard­er for them to step away, rein­forc­ing the dan­ger­ous, intox­i­cat­ing world they’ve cre­at­ed for them­selves.