-Caveat Lector- Connoisseur turned crook who plundered Europe's galleries for the simple love of art http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,889100,00.html Thief faces jail despite mother's effort to destroy illicit collection
John Hooper in Berlin Wednesday February 5, 2003 The Guardian On a March day in 1995, Stéphane Breitwieser and his girlfriend, Anne- Catherine Kleinklauss, found themselves alone in the Belle Luce room of the magnificent medieval castle at Gruyères, the cheese- making town in central Switzerland. Breitwieser was entranced by a small painting by the 18th century German artist, Christian Wilhelm Dietrich. It was not a particularly famous or valuable work: the painting - a portrait of a woman - was later priced at less than £1,500. But there was something about the subject which captivated the 23 year-old Breitwieser. "I was fascinated by her beauty, by the qualities of the woman in the portrait and by her eyes," he recalled yesterday. "I thought it was an imitation of Rembrandt." Another art lover might have lingered awhile and then turned from the room with a sigh. Instead, with his girlfriend keeping watch, Breitwieser worked out the nails holding the canvas in its frame, slipped the painting under his jacket and left the castle. The young waiter had just embarked on a six-year career in art theft which was to take him across Europe, net him works of art and objets d'art worth tens of millions of pounds, and lead him back yesterday to a court at Gruyères where he faces a 10-year prison sentence. Bizarrely, his passion for art resulted in many of the stolen works being thrown into a canal by his own mother. French prosecutors have said that, after learning of her son's arrest in November 2001, his mother, Mireille Breitwieser, destroyed some of what she found in his bedroom and threw other works and antiques into the Rhine-Rhône canal near the family home at Eschentzwiller. Among the vandalised canvasses were works by Antoine Watteau and Peter Bruegel. About 110 objects, valued at more than £6m, have been recovered including glassware, china, and musical instruments. But up to 60 paintings have not been found, and investigators fear they were destroyed by Mrs Breitwieser. Apart from the scale of the Frenchman's ambition and success as a thief, what distinguishes her son from other, common or garden art robbers is his motive: not lucre, but a genuine love of art and antiques. He made no effort to sell the works he stole and investigators came to accept that he was driven solely by the desire to build up a collection that would be the envy of many billionaires and which he stored in the house he shared with his mother near the Swiss border. They noted that the connoisseur-crook showed a marked preference for the 16th and 17th century masters. The magistrate in charge of his case quoted him as saying: "I enjoy art. I love such works of art. I collected them and kept them at home." Not the least important of the many questions before the court is whether Breitwieser's sincerity as a collector should have any bearing on his fate. The daily Le Temps newspaper said his lawyer would argue that his client had admitted "fraudulent removal", which is a lesser crime than the theft charges he is facing. Breitwieser grew up in an environment imbued by the love of old and beautiful things. His father was a collector of antiques. When his father left home, he took with him his collection of antique weapons and young Stéphane decided that one day he would have his own. Art already played a role in the family - his great-uncle was the Alsace painter, Robert Breitwieser who died in 1975 - and Stéphane's interests soon broadened out from antiques to painting. He has so far admitted to stealing 239 pictures and museum exhibits. His most valuable haul is reckoned to be a 16th-century work by Lucas Cranach the Elder entitled Sybille, Princess of Cleves, which was taken from a museum in Baden-Baden in Germany in 1995. It is estimated that it would fetch between £5- 5.6m at auction. Breitwieser targeted mostly small museums in France and Switzerland, but he has admitted to dipping into collections in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Austria. He helped himself to oils, drawings, statuettes, goblets, dishes, pistols, daggers, halberds, and powder horns. The end of his extraordinary criminal-cultural adventure came when he was arrested near the Richard Wagner museum in Lucerne, a few days after allegedly stealing a hunting dagger made of horn and dating from 1584. A verdict in his case is expected on Thursday, after which he faces extradition to France. Breitwieser astonished detectives with the detail of his recall. He was able to tell them not only about everything he had stolen but also the place to which he had assigned each item in his mother's home. Mrs Breitwieser was arrested last year on suspicion of handling stolen goods and was jailed for three months. Much of the first day of his trial was taken up with the detailing of a long inventory of the 69 works he has admitted stealing in Switzerland. The defendant several times interrupted the proceedings to correct the description of a painting. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. 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