Norway Police Recover `Scream,' `Madonna' Paintings (Correct)
2006-08-31 14:48 (New York)


     (Corrects typographical error in ninth paragraph.)

By Bunny Nooryani
     Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Edvard Munch's famous ``The Scream,''
which was one of two paintings by the Norwegian artist stolen in
an armed raid in 2004, has been recovered by police.
     Both stolen paintings were retrieved today, said Police
Inspector Iver Stensrud at a press conference in Oslo. ``The
Scream'' and ``Madonna'' have been evaluated by a representative
from the Munch museum in Oslo and deemed authentic. The artwork
is in better condition than had been expected, Stensrud said.
     ``There was far from the damage that one could have
feared,'' Stensrud, who headed the police investigation, said
during the partially televised press briefing.
     ``The Scream,'' is worth an estimated 500 million kroner
($79 million), while ``Madonna'' may be worth about 100 million
kroner, Aftenposten newspaper said today. The paintings were
taken at gunpoint from Oslo's Munch Museum by two hooded men on
Aug. 22, 2004. The raid was witnessed by museum visitors.
     Three men were sentenced to between four and eight years in
jail in May in connection with the robbery. Two of them were also
ordered to pay 750 million kroner in damages to the city of Oslo,
which owns the paintings, should the artwork not be found.
     One of the paintings has a tear and the other is slightly
damaged along its edge, Oslo's city council leader Erling Lae
told Aftenposten today.
     The paintings will be scientifically tested to confirm their
authenticity, police said, declining to say where they were
found.
     ``The Oslo police have put a great deal of work into
investigating how to get the paintings back,'' police said.
``This is a special day.''

                    `Angst of Civilized Man'

     ``The Scream'' and ``Madonna'' are part of ``The Frieze of
Life'' series, where Munch focused on death, melancholy, illness,
anxiety and love. ``The Scream'' is dominated by swirling shades
of red, blue, green and black. It depicts a willowy person
clutching his or her skull-like head with both hands, seemingly
screaming or hearing a scream.
     ``The painting, which seethes with movement, appears to be
painted with an explosive force and the result is a genuine
expression of an agitated mind,'' the Munch museum said on its
Web site. ``It has become recognized as the actual mental image
of the existential angst of civilized man.''
     Munch, who died in 1944, painted several versions of the
``Scream.'' The best-known example of the work, completed in
1893, was stolen from Norway's national gallery in 1994 in a
break-in that coincided with the Winter Olympics. That work was
later recovered.

--Editor: Nundy

Story illustration: See {BLAW <GO>} for Bloomberg's legal
database. To see art-price indexes from Art Market Research,
click {ALLX ARTQ <GO>}. For more art news, see {MUSETOP <GO>}.
See http://www.munch.museum.no/ for the Munch Museum's Web site.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Bunny Nooryani in Oslo at (47) 22 99 62 10 or
bnooryani@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Peter Torday at (44) (20) 7330 7539 or
ptorday@bloomberg.net
Daniel Tilles at (44) (20) 7673-2649 or dtilles@bloomberg.net

[TAGINFO]
NI NOR
NI LEI
NI ENT
NI MUSE
NI CRIME
NI SCA
NI ART
NI LAW
NI GEN
NI EUROPE


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