Munch Museum Madonna Art Theft: FBI Art Crime Solved Within Two Years

Summary: The Munch Museum Madonna art theft Aug. 22, 2004, panicked witnesses but proved solvable with paintings saved and perpetrators sentenced within two years.

"Madonna," Edvard Munch's 1894 oil on canvas stolen Sunday, Aug. 22, 2004, from Oslo's Munch Museum and recovered Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006: Google Art Project, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

August appeared on Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) top solved and unsolved art crimes lists with the Munch Museum Madonna art theft Aug. 22, 2004, and the painting's recovery Aug. 31, 2006.

Eyewitnesses bestowed almost an after-thought status to one of two black-masked gunmen breaking the wire to the 35.43- by 26.77-inch (90- by 68-centimeter) oil on canvas. Cameras, guards and visitors considered Skrik (The Scream) the cornerstone of the art crime calculated at $100 million (€83 million) in combined value with the Madonna. The all-dark attire, hooded tops and ski masks donned by the two gunmen dashed all hopes of the museum's closed-circuit television system detailing recognizable body features.

A bystander's camera elicited no clearer exposure of perpetrator identities even though it enabled police to establish perpetrator getaways in a black Audi A6 station wagon.

Munch Museum thieves carrying stolen artwork while another thief opens trunk of getaway vehicle, a black Audi A6; Associated Press handout photo taken Sunday, Aug. 22, 2004, by witness asking not to be identified: Mark Barry, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

The internet furnished eyewitness accounts from newspaper articles about the perpetrators flourishing .357-Magnum handguns, forcing guards to the floor and fumbling with the paintings' flimsy attachments. Jorunn Christofferson, museum press officer, gave visitor-prioritized safety guidelines that "When they [perpetrators] threaten the guards with a gun there is not much to be done."

François Castang, French radio producer, held that "What's strange is that in this museum, there weren't any means of protection for the paintings, no alarm bell." As one of 50 to 80 visitors during the Munch Museum Madonna art theft, he indicated, "The paintings were simply attached by wire to the walls." He judged that "All you had to do is pull on the painting hard for the cord to break loose" and gunmen to jeopardize both masterpieces.

An exhibition, "Scream and Madonna Revisited," which ran from Friday, May 23, to Friday, Sep. 26, 2008, celebrated the stolen paintings' return and presented the restoration process; "Madonna," with worse damages, including a ripped canvas, than "The Scream," underwent further restoration after the exhibition ended; Saturday, Aug. 2, 2008, 01:51:12: Hans Dinkelberg (uitdragerij), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Brutal getaways knocked paintings off walls and out of their frames and kept them folded even though rolling also kindled such damages as chipped, loosened paint.

The armed intervention looked more lethal in the perpetrators' curtly lifting the paintings from the Oslo museum's walls than in their laden lumbering outside Tøyengata 53. It mustered up just minutes for the grab-and-go, in-and-out maneuver by maintaining the famous Edvard Munch (Dec. 12, 1863-Jan. 23, 1944) masterpieces upright in their frames. It nursed neither painting, less or more nicely with cutters, knives or razor blades, from their protective frames at no point inside or outside the museum.

Outrage to the Munch Museum Madonna art theft casualty, and to The Scream, occurred near a tennis court no more than one mile (1.61 kilometer) away.

Norwegian writer and model for Munch's "Madonna" Dagny Juel-Przybyszewska (June 8, 1867-June 5, 1901), in undated portrait, engraved by Berlin-based Meisenbach Riffarth, in Kiedy słońce zachodzi("When the sun goes down"; Warszawa: Jan Fiszer, MCMii [1902], frontispiece), translated from Norwegian and published (przełożył z Norweskiego i wydał) posthumously by Dagny's husband, Polish Decadent movement novelist, playwright and poet Stanisław Przybyszewski (May 7, 1868-Nov. 23, 1927): Public Domain, via Biblioteka Narodowa POLONA digital library

Purloining paintings at 11:10 a.m. Central European Summer Time (9:10 a.m. Coordinated Universal Time) progressed to parceling frame pieces by 1:00 p.m. CEST (11:00 a.m. UTC).

Cut cords at the Munch Museum, destroyed frames on the street and the fire-gutted Audi near tennis courts quickened fears of violence to the stolen duo. Rumors raged regarding both paintings' destruction and resemble those relating to the still missing Caravaggio Nativity, Chácara do Céu Museum and Gardner Museum art theft casualties. Silence strengthened sorrowful suspicions since police solve the first Munch Madonna art theft March 29, 1990, by securing the Gallery Kunsthuset AS version within three months.

The Munch tribute to Dagny Juel-Przybyszewska (June 8, 1867-June 5, 1901) in his world-famous Madonna turned up two years after the Munch Museum Madonna art theft.

Munch's 1894 "Madonna" is back on display, with a protective glass, in Oslo's Munch Museum; Sunday, July 25, 2010: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra (dalbéra), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

"Madonna," Edvard Munch's 1894 oil on canvas stolen Sunday, Aug. 22, 2004, from Oslo's Munch Museum and recovered Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006: Google Art Project, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edvard_Munch_-_Madonna_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Munch Museum thieves carrying stolen artwork to another thief at trunk of getaway vehicle, a black Audi A6; Associated Press handout photo taken Sunday, Aug. 22, 2004, by witness asking not to be identified: Mark Barry, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/markart/230875315/

An exhibition, "Scream and Madonna Revisited," which ran from Friday, May 23, to Friday, Sep. 26, 2008, celebrated the stolen paintings' return and presented the restoration process; "Madonna," with worse damages, including a ripped canvas, than "The Scream," underwent further restoration after the exhibition ended; Saturday, Aug. 2, 2008, 01:51:12: Hans Dinkelberg (uitdragerij), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/uitdragerij/2862542041/

Norwegian writer and model for Munch's "Madonna" Dagny Juel-Przybyszewska (June 8, 1867-June 5, 1901), in undated portrait, engraved by Berlin-based Meisenbach Riffarth, in Kiedy słońce zachodzi("When the sun goes down"; Warszawa: Jan Fiszer, MCMii [1902], frontispiece), translated from Norwegian and published (przełożył z Norweskiego i wydał) posthumously by Dagny's husband, Polish Decadent movement novelist, playwright and poet Stanisław Przybyszewski (May 7, 1868-Nov. 23, 1927): Public Domain, via Biblioteka Narodowa POLONA digital library @ https://polona.pl/preview/20b7facc-068c-4dcb-9b44-cf7f0c17a6f7; (image URL @ https://polona.pl/item-view/20b7facc-068c-4dcb-9b44-cf7f0c17a6f7?page=9);
Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dagny_Juel.jpg

Munch's 1894 "Madonna" is back on display, with a protective glass, in Oslo's Munch Museum; Sunday, July 25, 2010: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra (dalbéra), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/dalbera/4857491397/

For further information:

Fouché, Gwladys; Bowcott, Owen; and Henley, Jon. 23 August 2004. "A Blur of Balaclavas - and The Scream Was Gone Again." The Guardian > World > World News.
Available @ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/aug/23/artsandhumanities.education

Gibbs, Walter. 3 May 2006. "3 Convicted, 3 Acquitted in Theft of Munch's Art." The New York Times > Art & Design.
Available @ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/arts/design/03scre.html

Hollington, Kris. 13 June 2005. "Master Plan." The Guardian > U.S. Edition > Arts > Art & Design > Art.
Available @ https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/jun/13/art.arttheft

Mellgren, Doug. 1 September 2006. "Police Recover Stolen 'Scream.'" Deseret News.
Available @ http://www.deseretnews.com/article/645197872/Police-recover-stolen-Scream-painting.html

Montgomery, David. 23 August 2004. "Munch's 'Scream' Stolen in Brazen Raid." The Washington Post > Politics.
Available @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/08/23/munchs-scream-stolen-in-brazen-raid/fdb36e0d-b1ff-4b67-9519-9c273059343a/?utm_term=.b0cf66b2395a

"Scream Stolen from Norway Museum." BBC News > Europe > 22 August 2004.
Available @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3588282.stm