The Art Thief - 3 Quarks Daily

Brandon Tensley at The Washington Post:

At first blush, the journalist Michael Finkel’s captivating new book, “The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession,” is all about heists. Over the course of 200-some snackable pages, Finkel revisits the exploits of Stéphane Breitwieser, the most prolific art robber in history. From 1994 to 2001, the Frenchman, who usually worked alongside Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, his girlfriend at the time, swiped more than 300 works, with some estimates placing the total value at around $2 billion. Breitwieser had no desire to sell his bounty. Instead, he simply wanted to gaze on it. He saw his loot as a means toward connection. To him, the pieces were a portal to bygone eras — the late Renaissance and early Baroque, primarily — and their aesthetic pleasures.

But while the book is, as the subtitle says, a story of crime, it’s also, on a quieter level, an exploration of archiving and ownership. At the height of his infamy, Breitwieser viewed himself as an “art liberator.”

more here.