Chap­ter 9 of The Art Thief fur­ther explores the intri­cate and care­ful­ly struc­tured life of Bre­itwieser, who con­tin­ues his pas­sion for art theft with metic­u­lous plan­ning and devo­tion. While Anne-Cather­ine car­ries on with her dai­ly activ­i­ties and work, Bre­itwieser spends his time immersed in research at var­i­ous key loca­tions, such as libraries in Mul­house and Stras­bourg. His deep dive into the art world also includes reg­u­lar vis­its to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Basel’s exten­sive art-his­to­ry col­lec­tion, where he con­sults the Benez­it Dic­tio­nary of Artists. This resource, filled with artist cat­a­logs and prove­nance infor­ma­tion, offers Bre­itwieser crit­i­cal details to sup­port his con­tin­ued crim­i­nal pur­suits. Flu­ent in mul­ti­ple lan­guages, includ­ing Ger­man, Eng­lish, and French, he skill­ful­ly nav­i­gates the read­ings, absorb­ing impor­tant facts from a range of sources. His intense devo­tion to under­stand­ing art’s his­to­ry fur­ther fuels his obses­sion with acquir­ing it, mak­ing him increas­ing­ly metic­u­lous in his crim­i­nal work. This approach to learn­ing strength­ens his sense of enti­tle­ment over stolen works, rein­forc­ing the belief that he is pre­serv­ing art rather than steal­ing it.

In the midst of his crim­i­nal exploits, Bre­itwieser orga­nizes the stolen pieces he col­lects into detailed fold­ers, along­side the rel­e­vant ref­er­ence mate­ri­als he metic­u­lous­ly gath­ers. Each piece is cat­a­loged with sketch­es, notes, and his thoughts on their impor­tance and aes­thet­ic val­ue. Thanks to the sup­port of his grand­par­ents, who pro­vide resources for his grow­ing col­lec­tion, his per­son­al library expands to more than five hun­dred vol­umes. These books serve not only as a tool for learn­ing but as a reflec­tion of his obses­sion with art, deep­en­ing his knowl­edge of var­i­ous peri­ods, tech­niques, and artists. One par­tic­u­lar focus is the life of Georg Petel, a tal­ent­ed artist whose trag­ic death at thir­ty-four left a sig­nif­i­cant mark on the art world. Petel’s untime­ly demise due to the plague res­onates with Bre­itwieser, who is fas­ci­nat­ed by how this loss con­tributed to the artist’s mys­tique and lega­cy. While many admire Petel’s work, it is Breitwieser’s obses­sion with pre­serv­ing the artist’s lega­cy, how­ev­er illic­it­ly, that dri­ves him to steal such pieces. The more he stud­ies these artists, the deep­er his con­vic­tion grows, con­vinc­ing him that he is right­ful­ly col­lect­ing and pre­serv­ing their cre­ations, irre­spec­tive of the legal­i­ty of his actions.

As Bre­itwieser and Anne-Cather­ine grow more com­fort­able with their crim­i­nal activ­i­ties, they begin to tar­get muse­ums with weak­er secu­ri­ty, cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties that many small­er insti­tu­tions present. Muse­ums, espe­cial­ly those with lim­it­ed resources, often depend on pub­lic trust rather than robust secu­ri­ty sys­tems to pro­tect their art, cre­at­ing a per­fect envi­ron­ment for theft. This stark con­trast between the muse­ums’ intent to fos­ter an inti­mate rela­tion­ship with their patrons and the ease with which they can be exploit­ed by crim­i­nals like Bre­itwieser high­lights the sys­temic flaws in art pro­tec­tion. Bre­itwieser and Anne-Cather­ine expert­ly nav­i­gate these vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, select­ing tar­gets that lack the secu­ri­ty mea­sures nec­es­sary to thwart their crim­i­nal plans. Their skills come into full play dur­ing their heist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Basel muse­um, where they set their sights on a renowned paint­ing by Willem van Mieris. Despite the pres­ence of a secu­ri­ty cam­era, Breitwieser’s care­ful plan­ning allows him to bypass the sys­tem and exe­cute the theft with pre­ci­sion. With Anne-Catherine’s help, the paint­ing is swift­ly con­cealed in a shop­ping bag, and the duo exits with­out rais­ing any sus­pi­cion. The heist is suc­cess­ful, with only a vague video cap­tur­ing a fleet­ing image of a man walk­ing away. This chap­ter not only show­cas­es the cou­ple’s audac­i­ty but also expos­es the art world’s inher­ent vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, as well as the thieves’ grow­ing exper­tise and relent­less dri­ve. Their actions are a tes­ta­ment to the sys­temic flaws with­in muse­ums, which remain unable to pre­vent such high-lev­el art thefts despite efforts to secure their trea­sures.