Who hasn’t seen a beautiful object in a museum or art gallery and thought: “I should just slip that into my pocket and take it home. I appreciate it so much more than these people do.”
Of course you haven’t. That’s illegal. It’s delusional. It’s just plain nuts.
But for decades, a man in eastern France did just that, amassing an illicit collection of sculptures, ceramics, paintings, etc. worth perhaps $2 billion — and secretly displaying it in his attic rooms at his mother’s house.
American author Michael Finkel was intrigued enough by this oddball case that he’s written “The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession.”
Finkel will be in Naples on Monday, Jan. 20, to open the 2025 Nonfiction Author Series for the Friends of the Library of Collier County.
The series at the Hilton Naples consists of four Monday morning breakfasts, followed by lectures from best-selling nonfiction authors, and then book signings. Proceeds from the events help support the 10 branches of the Collier County Public Library system with e-book purchases, the Children’s Summer Reading Program, the genealogy research databases and the Mail-a-Book program.