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Art Theft in Oslo

The Return of Munch's Icons

While most Norwegians are delighted that one of their most famous son's paintings have been recovered relatively unscathed, there is still some anger at how easy they were to steal.

When Munch Museum chairwoman Gro Balas wanted to announce the good news, she was slightly annoyed at first. A circus troupe was busy watching its dogs perform on the lawn in front of the museum in Oslo, Norway. "How can people train dogs, when something like this has happened?" she said, before going on to announce the big news of the day. "People should come here with flags and celebrate!" she declared. A world treasure had returned, the theft of which had felt like an "attack" on the Norwegian people. The police had recovered Edvard Munch's "The Scream" (1893) and "Madonna" (1894), two years after their audacious robbery from the museum.

There is now speculation that the police's complicated investigation finally succeeded thanks to the help of convicted bank robber and underworld boss David Toska, who may have secured a reduced sentence in exchange for vital information on the whereabouts of the artworks. Toska is said to be the head of a gang that robbed a cash depot a few months before the Munch robbery, during which a policeman was killed. The idea was to snatch the paintings in order to divert the police from their manhunt.

It may be a few months before the paintings will be hanging in the museum again. The pictures have received a few knocks and dents, and the surfaces have been slightly scratched. There are also two small tears and a hole the size of a coin in the lower part of the "Madonna." Conservationists at the museum are now checking to see if there has been any damage from exposure as a result of not being stored appropriately.

But there has also been criticism of the museum's failure to protect the work of the country's most famous painter. The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten recently wrote that stealing the paintings had been as easy as holding up a newsstand. Munch is not only Norwegian, his works count among the world's greatest art treasures, wrote the paper. "And we exhibit these works in a newsstand."

smd/spiegel