BLOIS, France -- The administrators of the Chateau de Blois are still shaken by what happened on July 19, 1996. At the height of the tourist season, with more than 2,000 daily visitors to the medieval chateau and its museum of fine arts, a small 16th-century portrait was removed from an ornate frame and disappeared. It was the museum's first such loss in memory and it exposed weaknesses in the chateau's security.
Within days, as other museums and chateaux in the region began reporting similar art thefts, a pattern seemed to emerge. The presumption was that they had been successively targeted by one of the gangs that feed an $8 billion annual traffic in stolen art, much of which passes through crooked dealers and ends up in private European and American collections.
But a different kind of thief had hit the Chateau de Blois and scores of other museums, chateaux and galleries across Western Europe; one whom these institutions were less prepared to combat; a lone criminal, not a gang. Most of the buildings housing art had barred windows, reinforced doors and alarm systems to forestall a forced entry. This criminal understood that the art was most vulnerable during visiting hours.
"In a way, small museums are better protected at night than in the day," said Ton Cremers, who manages the Museum Security Network, based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. "The buildings are usually well secured, but the objects themselves are often very poorly secured, or not at all."
It was this, investigators say, that made things easy for Stephane Breitwieser. After admitting to stealing 239 art works during 174 thefts in seven European countries since 1995, this 31-year-old Frenchman told the police that he did so "in broad daylight, without break-ins, during visiting hours."
It is now also clear why none of the works appeared on the market: he stole to build up a private collection, which he kept in a bedroom at his mother's home near Mulhouse, in eastern France.
Still more extraordinary, after Breitwieser was arrested in November for stealing a bugle from a Swiss museum, his mother, Mireille Breitwieser, cleared his room of incriminating evidence, throwing more than 100 objects into a canal and destroying some 60 paintings, investigators said. Many objects have been recovered from the canal, but the paintings are feared lost. Breitwieser's mother is under arrest in Strasbourg, France.
French and Swiss investigators have not released a full list of the paintings believed destroyed, but the works are known to include Blois' portrait of Madeleine of France, Queen of Scotland, by Corneille de Lyon, as well as valuable works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Antoine Watteau and Francois Boucher. French police estimated the value of the art stolen by Breitwieser at more than $1.4 billion, but art experts now believe that figure to be lower.
A more pertinent question, however, is how was it possible for Breitwieser, a waiter by profession, to wander Europe for six years helping himself to art? The answer, deeply embarrassing to cultural authorities in France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Denmark, is that security was totally inadequate. And the excuse is that Europe is full of small museums -- 1,200 in France alone -- that cannot afford to protect their collections.
Cremers, a security consultant to Dutch and Belgian museums who runs an information web site -- www.museum-security.org -- said that many of Breitwieser's victims were caught off-guard. "Because small museums without great treasures are generally free from disasters of this kind, they are less aware of the danger," Cremers said. "And this guy understood this."
The Thomas Henry Museum in Cherbourg, France, for instance, had never had an work stolen since it opened in 1835. But Breitwieser was able to leave with a 17th-century Flemish painting on copper worth about $150,000.
"He made a good choice," said Jean-Luc Dufresnes, the museum's curator. "He must have studied how the painting was secured and he needed less than 30 seconds to detach it."
With each theft, museums have tried to improve their security. "He took a small 17th-century painting that I bought for less than $10,000," said Alain Tapie, the curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in Caen, France. "He had good taste. I still miss the piece. Since then, we have reinforced the alarm system. If a painting is taken off the wall, an alarm bell rings. It's the only painting we have had stolen."
At Blois, Thierry Crepin-Leblond, the director, said that during visiting hours there is no substitute for human surveillance. Even then, he added, guards need special training. "In this case, Breitwieser may have had an accomplice who distracted the guards," he speculated. "Now, if someone faints, we teach the guards to be wary of a distraction. They should report the incident by radio, but not move from their position."
Crepin-Leblond, like other museum directors, was reluctant to describe in detail his museum's security system, although each of its rooms now has closed-circuit television cameras as well as guards. "With the Corneille de Lyon," he said, referring to the work stolen in 1996, "it was painted on a wooden panel. The frame was attached to the wall, but not the painting. Breitwieser was able to open a gap between the frame and the wall and slip out the panel."
He said that frames were now more firmly attached, and in some cases glass covers the paintings to prevent the canvas from being removed with a cutter. "This one has glass," he explained, showing a visitor around galleries filled with the kind of 17th- and 18th-century paintings admired by Breitwieser, "because it hangs in a blind spot, out of the normal sight line of the guards."
Crepin-Leblond also shared Cremers' view that infrared sensors and alarms served little purpose if staff members were not trained to react quickly. "One museum I know had an invisible electronic eye covering its paintings," Crepin-Leblond recounted. "A man entered the sensitive area, the alarm went off, the man walked through the entire area, and no one came in response."
One problem is that paying guards costs more than installing and maintaining electronic or mechanical security. This is even a problem for major museums like the Louvre, where on any given day a fifth of the galleries are closed for lack of security guards. It goes without saying, then, that tight budgets have led many smaller museums to rely on hardware.
In France, where Breitwieser is said to have carried out more than half his thefts, museums and chateaux displaying government-owned art benefit from security advice from police experts attached to government departments. Until now, though, these experts have focused their attention on organized crime, which still poses the greatest threat.
"Now we have to allow for the 'enlightened thief' who goes about discreetly collecting small works," said Louis-Philippe Cadias, a police investigator at the French department of architecture and patrimony. "They are the most difficult to catch because they are experts and prepare well."
He said it was important to identify weak spots in the layout of a collection. "Each painting and art object may be attached, but nothing can resist more than 30 minutes of effort to remove it unless it has military armor," he said. "That's why you need good human backup."
Yves Lacroix, a police officer who advises the department of French museums, said that there were 24 thefts from French museums in 2001, about half as many as in "bad years." But he acknowledged that the demand for stolen art continued to grow across Europe. This is satisfied by thefts from private chateaux.
The London-based Art Loss Register, which records and traces stolen art, estimates that 61 percent of art thefts occur in domestic dwellings, with another 12 percent in galleries, 10 percent in churches and 9 percent in museums. Paintings account for half the looted art recovered because collectors often photograph paintings; if the paintings are stolen, the photographs can be displayed on web sites like www.artloss.com, which is run by the Art Loss Register.
Because paintings, particularly important works, are increasingly difficult to sell, even through underground channels, many gangs focus on antique clocks, musical instruments, tapestries, ceramics, glassware, silverware and furniture. Cadias, for instance, said that he even believed that some unscrupulous dealers tell gangs what kinds of art objects are in demand, although other experts question whether art is stolen to order.
"People make the mistake of thinking that art crime is a gentleman's crime," Cremers said. "The same crooks who break into homes break into museums. They know nothing about art. They're ordinary criminals. There's no proof that rich people order art to be stolen. Most thefts take place in private homes because they are poorly protected."
Still, while experts may dismiss the idea of an evil mogul ordering the theft of the "Mona Lisa," they also never anticipated that a young art lover turned compulsive thief could build himself a collection comparable to that of many small museums. How all the objects and paintings fitted into Breitwieser's bedroom remains a mystery, but it appears that they were there for his private viewing pleasure.
"He told me, 'I enjoy art, I love such works of art, I collected them and kept them at home,"' said Emil Birchler, the Swiss prosecutor who interrogated Breitwieser in Lucerne. The police said that when Breitwieser was at his mother's home, the last thing he saw at night was Boucher's bucolic "Sleeping Shepherd." It hung on the wall next to his pillow.
Within days, as other museums and chateaux in the region began reporting similar art thefts, a pattern seemed to emerge. The presumption was that they had been successively targeted by one of the gangs that feed an $8 billion annual traffic in stolen art, much of which passes through crooked dealers and ends up in private European and American collections.
But a different kind of thief had hit the Chateau de Blois and scores of other museums, chateaux and galleries across Western Europe; one whom these institutions were less prepared to combat; a lone criminal, not a gang. Most of the buildings housing art had barred windows, reinforced doors and alarm systems to forestall a forced entry. This criminal understood that the art was most vulnerable during visiting hours.
"In a way, small museums are better protected at night than in the day," said Ton Cremers, who manages the Museum Security Network, based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. "The buildings are usually well secured, but the objects themselves are often very poorly secured, or not at all."
It was this, investigators say, that made things easy for Stephane Breitwieser. After admitting to stealing 239 art works during 174 thefts in seven European countries since 1995, this 31-year-old Frenchman told the police that he did so "in broad daylight, without break-ins, during visiting hours."
It is now also clear why none of the works appeared on the market: he stole to build up a private collection, which he kept in a bedroom at his mother's home near Mulhouse, in eastern France.
Still more extraordinary, after Breitwieser was arrested in November for stealing a bugle from a Swiss museum, his mother, Mireille Breitwieser, cleared his room of incriminating evidence, throwing more than 100 objects into a canal and destroying some 60 paintings, investigators said. Many objects have been recovered from the canal, but the paintings are feared lost. Breitwieser's mother is under arrest in Strasbourg, France.
French and Swiss investigators have not released a full list of the paintings believed destroyed, but the works are known to include Blois' portrait of Madeleine of France, Queen of Scotland, by Corneille de Lyon, as well as valuable works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Antoine Watteau and Francois Boucher. French police estimated the value of the art stolen by Breitwieser at more than $1.4 billion, but art experts now believe that figure to be lower.
A more pertinent question, however, is how was it possible for Breitwieser, a waiter by profession, to wander Europe for six years helping himself to art? The answer, deeply embarrassing to cultural authorities in France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Denmark, is that security was totally inadequate. And the excuse is that Europe is full of small museums -- 1,200 in France alone -- that cannot afford to protect their collections.
Cremers, a security consultant to Dutch and Belgian museums who runs an information web site -- www.museum-security.org -- said that many of Breitwieser's victims were caught off-guard. "Because small museums without great treasures are generally free from disasters of this kind, they are less aware of the danger," Cremers said. "And this guy understood this."
The Thomas Henry Museum in Cherbourg, France, for instance, had never had an work stolen since it opened in 1835. But Breitwieser was able to leave with a 17th-century Flemish painting on copper worth about $150,000.
"He made a good choice," said Jean-Luc Dufresnes, the museum's curator. "He must have studied how the painting was secured and he needed less than 30 seconds to detach it."
With each theft, museums have tried to improve their security. "He took a small 17th-century painting that I bought for less than $10,000," said Alain Tapie, the curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in Caen, France. "He had good taste. I still miss the piece. Since then, we have reinforced the alarm system. If a painting is taken off the wall, an alarm bell rings. It's the only painting we have had stolen."
At Blois, Thierry Crepin-Leblond, the director, said that during visiting hours there is no substitute for human surveillance. Even then, he added, guards need special training. "In this case, Breitwieser may have had an accomplice who distracted the guards," he speculated. "Now, if someone faints, we teach the guards to be wary of a distraction. They should report the incident by radio, but not move from their position."
Crepin-Leblond, like other museum directors, was reluctant to describe in detail his museum's security system, although each of its rooms now has closed-circuit television cameras as well as guards. "With the Corneille de Lyon," he said, referring to the work stolen in 1996, "it was painted on a wooden panel. The frame was attached to the wall, but not the painting. Breitwieser was able to open a gap between the frame and the wall and slip out the panel."
He said that frames were now more firmly attached, and in some cases glass covers the paintings to prevent the canvas from being removed with a cutter. "This one has glass," he explained, showing a visitor around galleries filled with the kind of 17th- and 18th-century paintings admired by Breitwieser, "because it hangs in a blind spot, out of the normal sight line of the guards."
Crepin-Leblond also shared Cremers' view that infrared sensors and alarms served little purpose if staff members were not trained to react quickly. "One museum I know had an invisible electronic eye covering its paintings," Crepin-Leblond recounted. "A man entered the sensitive area, the alarm went off, the man walked through the entire area, and no one came in response."
One problem is that paying guards costs more than installing and maintaining electronic or mechanical security. This is even a problem for major museums like the Louvre, where on any given day a fifth of the galleries are closed for lack of security guards. It goes without saying, then, that tight budgets have led many smaller museums to rely on hardware.
In France, where Breitwieser is said to have carried out more than half his thefts, museums and chateaux displaying government-owned art benefit from security advice from police experts attached to government departments. Until now, though, these experts have focused their attention on organized crime, which still poses the greatest threat.
"Now we have to allow for the 'enlightened thief' who goes about discreetly collecting small works," said Louis-Philippe Cadias, a police investigator at the French department of architecture and patrimony. "They are the most difficult to catch because they are experts and prepare well."
He said it was important to identify weak spots in the layout of a collection. "Each painting and art object may be attached, but nothing can resist more than 30 minutes of effort to remove it unless it has military armor," he said. "That's why you need good human backup."
Yves Lacroix, a police officer who advises the department of French museums, said that there were 24 thefts from French museums in 2001, about half as many as in "bad years." But he acknowledged that the demand for stolen art continued to grow across Europe. This is satisfied by thefts from private chateaux.
The London-based Art Loss Register, which records and traces stolen art, estimates that 61 percent of art thefts occur in domestic dwellings, with another 12 percent in galleries, 10 percent in churches and 9 percent in museums. Paintings account for half the looted art recovered because collectors often photograph paintings; if the paintings are stolen, the photographs can be displayed on web sites like www.artloss.com, which is run by the Art Loss Register.
Because paintings, particularly important works, are increasingly difficult to sell, even through underground channels, many gangs focus on antique clocks, musical instruments, tapestries, ceramics, glassware, silverware and furniture. Cadias, for instance, said that he even believed that some unscrupulous dealers tell gangs what kinds of art objects are in demand, although other experts question whether art is stolen to order.
"People make the mistake of thinking that art crime is a gentleman's crime," Cremers said. "The same crooks who break into homes break into museums. They know nothing about art. They're ordinary criminals. There's no proof that rich people order art to be stolen. Most thefts take place in private homes because they are poorly protected."
Still, while experts may dismiss the idea of an evil mogul ordering the theft of the "Mona Lisa," they also never anticipated that a young art lover turned compulsive thief could build himself a collection comparable to that of many small museums. How all the objects and paintings fitted into Breitwieser's bedroom remains a mystery, but it appears that they were there for his private viewing pleasure.
"He told me, 'I enjoy art, I love such works of art, I collected them and kept them at home,"' said Emil Birchler, the Swiss prosecutor who interrogated Breitwieser in Lucerne. The police said that when Breitwieser was at his mother's home, the last thing he saw at night was Boucher's bucolic "Sleeping Shepherd." It hung on the wall next to his pillow.