In Chap­ter 5 of “The Art Thief,” we find Anne-Cather­ine loung­ing on a lav­ish four-poster bed clad in Fer­rari-red sheets, glee­ful­ly declar­ing her domain while teas­ing her boyfriend, Bre­itwieser, who is cap­tur­ing the moment on video. Their cozy attic serves as a back­drop, echo­ing their five-year rela­tion­ship around the time of the infa­mous Adam and Eve theft. Anne-Cather­ine is char­ac­ter­ized by her youth­ful charm—petite, with dim­pled cheeks and tou­sled blond hair. The cou­ple play­ful­ly exchanges names; he calls her Nena, while she refers to him as Steph, but they com­bine their names pub­licly as Bre­itwieser and Anne-Cather­ine, a con­so­nance he rel­ish­es.

The play­ful atmos­phere shifts as Anne-Cather­ine cheek­i­ly sug­gests a fee for entry into their secret king­dom, but Bre­itwieser jokes about it being too steep. The vibran­cy of their inti­ma­cy is pal­pa­ble as their play­ful ban­ter unfolds. For Bre­itwieser, expe­ri­enc­ing art trig­gers a vis­cer­al reaction—a “coup de coeur” that com­pels him to pos­sess it. This intense attrac­tion spurred his pas­sion not only for art but also for Anne-Cather­ine, whom he met at a birth­day par­ty in 1991—she cap­ti­vat­ed him instant­ly, ignit­ing his first real romance.

Their rela­tion­ship com­pris­es highs and lows, described by their acquain­tances as irra­tional and reck­less. Yet, those who know Anne-Cather­ine attest to the sin­cer­i­ty of her affec­tion for Bre­itwieser, reveal­ing her pas­sion­ate nature. The stark con­trast between their backgrounds—hers of mod­est means, his affluent—further illu­mi­nates their dynam­ic. Through her con­nec­tion with Bre­itwieser, Anne-Cather­ine expe­ri­ences new­found excite­ment, escap­ing a life pre­vi­ous­ly deemed mun­dane.

Togeth­er, they nav­i­gate life’s chal­lenges, par­tic­u­lar­ly after Bre­itwieser’s par­ents’ sep­a­ra­tion. This emo­tion­al upheaval strength­ens their bond, and she often stays with him in their cramped liv­ing space. Despite career struggles—Anne-Catherine’s nurs­ing stud­ies fal­ter, and Bre­itwieser drops out of law school—they sup­port each oth­er.

A key moment aris­es dur­ing a trip to Thann, where Bre­itwieser’s eye is caught by a stun­ning flint­lock pis­tol in a local muse­um. It stirs with­in him the same fer­vor he feels for art. He envi­sions acquir­ing it not only as a prize but also as a rebel­lious state­ment against his father. Spot­ting that the pis­tol’s dis­play case is unlocked, Bre­itwieser feels an over­whelm­ing urge to take it. In a piv­otal moment of shared reck­less­ness, Anne-Cather­ine encour­ages him, sug­gest­ing he go ahead and claim the piece, set­ting them on a dar­ing path toward a life defined by audac­i­ty and rebel­lion .