Munch's stolen "The Scream" found by police
Thu Aug 31, 2006 1:04 PM ET

By Marianne Fronsdal

OSLO (Reuters) - "The Scream" and another stolen masterpiece by 
Norwegian artist Edvard Munch were recovered by police on Thursday, two 
years after gunmen seized the paintings from an Oslo museum.

"'The Scream' and 'Madonna' are now in police possession," police chief 
Iver Stensrud told a news conference. "The damage is much less than we 
could have feared."

He said the pictures were recovered on Thursday afternoon in "a 
successful police operation" and said no ransom had been paid.

"The Scream" is an icon of existential angst showing a terrified figure 
against a blood-red sky. "Madonna" shows a bare-breasted woman with 
long black hair.

Two masked gunmen walked into the Munch Museum in Oslo in August 2004 
and yanked the two works from the walls in front of dozens of terrified 
tourists. They escaped in a car driven by another man.

The paintings are both from 1893. Three men were convicted in May of 
taking part in the theft and were sentenced to up to eight years in 
jail.

Two of them were ordered to pay $122 million in damages.

The police said an expert at the Munch Museum had examined the pictures 
and judged them authentic. A scientific examination will also be 
carried out to verify the works.

Munch painted two famous versions of "The Scream", including the one 
recovered on Thursday.

The other was stolen in 1994 from Oslo's National Gallery by thieves 
who simply broke a window and climbed in with a ladder. It was 
recovered after several months by police posing as buyers.

Stensrud declined to answer questions about media reports last week 
that a jailed bank robber, David Toska, had promised information about 
the paintings if he won a reduced sentence.

"Out of consideration of police working methods, it will be hard to 
give details about how the operation was carried out," the police said 
in a statement.

In the foreground of "The Scream", on a bridge with railings, is a 
human figure, hands to its head, eyes staring, mouth agape. Further 
back are two men in top hats and a landscape of fjord and hills against 
a red sky.

The painting is regarded as an evocative depiction of angst in a world 
of man-made horrors such as genocide.

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