Masked gunmen burst into Oslo's Munch Museum during opening hours, threatened staff and visitors, and tore two of Edvard Munch's most famous works—'The Scream' and 'Madonna'—from the walls before fleeing in a getaway car. The brazen daylight heist stunned Norway and triggered a massive international manhunt for the missing masterpieces.
It happened fast: around 11 a.m., two men wearing balaclavas walked into the crowded Munch Museum, brandished a pistol at guards, and calmly unhooked 'The Scream' (one of several versions Munch painted) and 'Madonna' from the gallery walls. Museum visitors, initially thinking it might be performance art, watched in confusion as the thieves smashed the protective glass and carried the canvases out to a waiting Audi station wagon.
The theft came just months after another version of 'The Scream' had been stolen from Oslo's National Gallery in 1994, prompting fresh scrutiny of Norway's museum security. Investigators feared the paintings—priceless, uninsured cultural treasures—might be destroyed or held for ransom by organized crime figures.
Remarkably, both works resurfaced in August 2006 in reasonably good condition after a police raid, though they bore some water damage and small tears. Norwegian courts eventually convicted several men connected to a criminal network, and the recovered paintings, after careful restoration, returned to public display—cementing the heist as one of art history's most audacious and ultimately successful recovery stories.
Key people: Edvard Munch