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Munch's 'Scream' quietly back home

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 1, 2006

OSLO, Norway - Police recovered the Edvard Munch masterpieces The Scream and Madonna on Thursday, two years after masked gunmen grabbed the national art treasures in front of stunned visitors at an Oslo museum.

Art lovers had feared the priceless paintings were gone for good. Norwegian news media spent the months speculating about the works' fate - whether they had been burned to escape the police hunt, sold to a collector for private viewing or suffered harm in their hiding place.

"I saw the paintings myself today, and there was far from the damage that could have been feared," said Iver Stensrud, the police inspector who headed the investigation since the paintings were taken by masked gunmen who raided the Munch Museum on Aug. 22, 2004.

Experts from the museum confirmed that the paintings, still shielded from the public and the news media, were the real thing.

"I am almost crying from happiness," said Gro Balas, chairwoman of the Munch Museum board.

Art experts said it would be nearly impossible to sell such famous pieces of art, although some people speculated a rich, unscrupulous art lover might be a willing buyer.

Then at a trial this year for three men charged with minor roles in the heist, prosecutors suggested the robbery was staged to distract police from the hunt for a gang behind a commando-style bank robbery.

Norwegian news media reported recently that the convicted mastermind in the bank heist, David Toska, had made a deal for milder terms in a 21-year prison sentence in exchange for the paintings. Police declined comment.

The two paintings were on an FBI list last fall on the top 10 art thefts around the globe. Among still missing works are three Rembrandts, a Vermeer, a Manet and five Degas taken from Boston's Isabella Steward Gardner Museum in 1990 and a Cezanne stolen in 1999 from England's Ashmolean Museum.

[Last modified September 1, 2006, 01:47:12]