*sigh of relief*
OSLO, Norway (Reuters)—“The Scream” and another stolen masterpiece by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch were recovered by police on Thursday, two years after gunmen seized the paintings from an Oslo museum.
“‘The Scream’ and ‘Madonna’ are now in police possession,” police chief Iver Stensrud told a news conference. “The damage is much less than we could have feared.”
He said the pictures were recovered on Thursday afternoon in “a successful police operation” and said no ransom had been paid.
“The Scream” is an icon of existential angst showing a terrified figure against a blood-red sky. “Madonna” shows a bare-breasted woman with long black hair.
Two masked gunmen walked into the Munch Museum in Oslo in August 2004 and yanked the two works from the walls in front of dozens of terrified tourists. They escaped in a car driven by another man.
The paintings are both from 1893. Three men were convicted in May of taking part in the theft and were sentenced to up to eight years in jail.
