Daylight, guns and another Scream
This time there was no ladder and no taunting postcard. Armed men entered an open museum while visitors were inside.
The wrong Scream to confuse
The title is familiar enough to make the distinction easy to miss. Munch created more than one Scream. The painted version in this case belongs to MUNCH and bears inventory number MM.M.00514; the museum dates it tentatively to 1910. Its support is unprimed cardboard, painted in tempera and oil. It is a specific, vulnerable object, not an interchangeable example of a famous image. The version stolen from Norway’s National Gallery a decade earlier belongs to a separate case. [4]
An open museum becomes a crime scene
On 22 August 2004, armed men took The Scream and Madonna from the museum at Tøyen. People had come to see paintings, not to witness their removal. MUNCH’s retrospective describes the shock, the limited contemporary images of the escape and the security reckoning that followed. The building later closed for major improvements. When it reopened in May 2005, visitors encountered metal detection, altered entrances, protective glass and stronger fixings. The theft had changed the ordinary experience of entering a museum. [1]
Found, but not untouched
Police announced the recovery of both paintings on 31 August 2006. The account of where they had been and exactly how the operation succeeded remained restricted. Contemporary reports described their condition as better than feared, rather than perfect. ARCA’s account also records the criminal proceedings: convictions for planning the robbery and providing or driving the getaway vehicle had preceded recovery. A verdict could establish responsibility without producing the paintings; the police operation could recover the paintings without publicly resolving every movement they had made. Those were different achievements. [2][3]
Recovered in 2006
The Scream and Madonna were recovered on 31 August 2006. This concerns the Munch Museum robbery of 2004, not the theft of the National Gallery’s different Scream in 1994. Recovery did not mean that the paintings had escaped damage.
Sources checked 10 November 2026.Artwork Details & DocumentationIdentification, ownership history and supporting records
Individual artwork identification details have not yet been documented in this record. Missing specifications are not inferred from the photograph or report headline.
Not documented in this record: object type · materials & technique · measurements · inscriptions & markings · distinguishing features · artwork title · maker / attribution · creation date / period · subject.
Record sources
Identification details follow the Object ID categories where documented. Ownership history is recorded separately; this documentation is not an authentication or a certificate of ownership.
Sources & further reading
- MUNCH · The 2004 robbery and the museum’s response ↗
- ABC · Police recovery, 1 September 2006 ↗
- ARCA · Madonna and the theft proceedings ↗
- MUNCH · The Scream, inventory MM.M.00514 ↗
An original narrative synthesis of the sources above. Images depict the artworks; they are not reconstructions of the thefts.
