Stéphane Breitwieser

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Breitwieser at the “Salon du Livre de Colmar ” in France on November 26, 2006

Stéphane Breitwieser (born October 1, 1971 in Mulhouse , Alsace) is a French art thief and author . Between 1995 and 2001, while touring Europe and working as a waiter, he stole a total of 239 works of art valued at approximately $ 1.4 billion. Breitwieser did not steal the works to sell; Above all, he wanted to expand his private art collection with paintings from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

“I enjoy art. I love such works of art. I collected them and kept them at home. "

- Stéphane Breitwieser : at his court hearing

He committed his first theft in March 1995 while visiting the medieval castle in Gruyères (Switzerland) together with his girlfriend Anne-Catherine Kleinklauss. He stole a painting by Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich . He said about it:

“I was fascinated by the beauty, the painterly quality of the portrayed woman and her eyes. I thought it was a Rembrandt imitation. "

While his girlfriend was watching, he took the picture out of the frame and hid it under his jacket. The most valuable painting he stole was the portrait of Sybille von Kleve by Lucas Cranach the Elder on a preview at a Sotheby’s auction in Baden-Baden in 1995. It was worth around 7.3 million euros.

He was finally arrested in 2001 when he tried to destroy traces two days after a theft in Lucerne . In January 2005, he was sentenced to three years in prison in Strasbourg , but only served 26 months. Despite his extensive collection, Breitwieser can remember every piece that he stole. For example, while listing the works of art he had stolen during the court hearing, he interrupted the lecturer several times to add details. The day before the sentencing, he tried to hang himself in his cell. Breitwieser's girlfriend was sentenced to 18 months, but only had to serve six months. He had gathered the stolen works of art in his mother's house in Mulhouse. After her son was arrested, she said she cut it up and threw it either in the garbage or in a Rhone canal. This triggered one of Breitwieser's three failed suicide attempts. Due to the destruction of the works of art, the mother was also sentenced to three years in prison, but only remained in prison for 18 months.

A total of 102 of the stolen works of art were rescued from the canal and returned to various museums. The remaining exhibits have been destroyed or have disappeared. The descriptions of these lost works can be found in the database of the Art Loss Register . Breitwieser is at large in France and his thefts are barred there. However, he cannot leave the country without risking arrest abroad, as he also committed art theft in seven other European countries and different laws apply in each of these countries. According to the Süddeutscher Zeitung , an investigation by the Cologne Public Prosecutor was still pending in Germany in 2007 .

In early April 2011, the police searched his home again and found almost 30 stolen paintings and several other works of art. As a result, he was sentenced on July 3, 2013 by the Strasbourg Regional Court to three years in prison.

In February 2019 it was reported that he was arrested again in Alsace. He has been under surveillance since 2016 when he offered a 19th century paperweight on Ebay. Several such objects had been stolen from a museum in Saint Louis. Roman coins from an archeology museum were found in his house, as well as other pieces from local and German galleries. € 163,000 in cash was found in buckets at his mother's house.

Breitwieser wrote an autobiographical documentary in which he reports on his thefts, the first prison sentence and his motives. The book was published in French in 2006 under the title Confessions d'un Voleur d'art . In 2007 it was launched on the German-speaking book market under the title Confessions of an Art Thief .

Works

  • Confessions d'un Voleur d'art . Editions Anne Carrière, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-84337-410-3
    • Confessions of an art thief . Translation by Michael von Killisch-Horn. Bertelsmann, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-570-00992-5

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Art hoard worth $ 1.4bn destroyed
  2. ^ Hajo Düchting, Astrid Koke: Belser Kunstsammelsurium. Stuttgart 2008, p. 140 f.
  3. ↑ a b It came in broad daylight , online edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung from October 16, 2007.
  4. ^ Notorious art thief before renewed indictment , Focus Online of April 8, 2011 (accessed January 4, 2013).
  5. ↑ Recidivist "museum looters" back behind bars. Belgian broadcaster Eupen, 4th June 2013.
  6. ↑ Serial art thief Stéphane Breitwieser arrested — again. February 14, 2019, accessed February 20, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Breitwieser, Stéphane
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French art thief and author
DATE OF BIRTH 1st October 1971
PLACE OF BIRTH Mulhouse