Munch Paintings Recovered!
Two years ago, thieves broke into the Munch Museum in Oslo Norway an
A brief history of the theft and recovery of two very famous paintings by the Norwegian artist, Edvard Munch.
In August 2004, masked gunmen stole two Edvard Munch masterpiece paintings in broad daylight from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway. The Norway government led the hunt to find the perpetrators by listening in on over 70,000 phone calls.
In May of this year, three men were found guilty of driving the getaway car but the paintings had not yet been recovered. And on September 1, 2006 the two Munch paintings were recovered, though authorities are not yet releasing details on how or where they found the paintings.
One of the paintings, The Scream, is Munch's best known work that represents anxiety and terror. The Scream alone is said to be valued at $74.5 million dollars US. The other painting, Madonna, is from 1894 and represents a very naked and saucy virgin Mary.
The first question I have about this high profile art theft is, why? What was the purpose of using armed gunmen during the day to steal such famous paintings that they could never be sold on the open market? There are a few theories floating around out there. The first is that the paintings would be held for ransom and that they would be returned after the ransom was paid.
Another theory as to the purpose of the theft is proposed by Norwegian Police who speculate that the theft had been ordered by David Toska, a Norwegian criminal ringleader and former chess player. It is said that he had the paintings stolen as a way of distracting attention from a bigger crime of armed robbery where a policeman was killed, which sounds questionable at best. Another source says that Toska assisted in the recovery of the paintings in exchange for a lesser sentence in the armed robbery conviction, a more reasonable theory. So perhaps a new trend could be high-powered criminals using art to negotiate for a better prison sentence? It is good to note that the Oslo Museum beefed up its security system considerably after this famous theft.
