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 } for Bloomberg's legal database. To see art-price indexes from Art Market Research, click {ALLX ARTQ }. For more art news, see {MUSETOP }. 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 #<643212.2277058.1.0.7.4.25># -0- Aug/31/2006 18:48 GMT