Norway’s Best-Known Painting Stolen From Museum in Oslo

Two thieves Saturday stole Norway’s most famous painting, “The Scream,” by 19th-Century artist Edvard Munch, from the National Gallery in central Oslo, the gallery said.

The two men, filmed by video surveillance, climbed into the building using a ladder early Saturday. They smashed a window, grabbed the painting and disappeared in an operation that took about a minute.

“It’s like someone stole the ‘Mona Lisa,’ ” said Oslo University art professor Trygve Nergaard. He feared that Munch’s painting, on fragile paper, could be damaged.

The alarm was set off at 6:30 a.m. Police arrived within minutes, but by then the thieves were gone. They left behind the 10-foot ladder and the wire cutters used to cut the wire that attached the painting to the wall.

Munch painted “The Scream” in 1893 as part of his “Frieze of Life” series, in which sickness, death, anxiety and love are central themes.

The painting, executed in garish colors and sinuous, powerful brush strokes, shows a figure on a bridge, screaming for no discernible reason, as two shadowy figures stand in the background.

The technique and the portrayal of personal, nameless horror exerted a strong influence on the Expressionists of the early 20th Century. The image is one of the art world’s most recognizable and has been widely used on T-shirts and joke items.

“It is impossible to estimate the value of the painting. But it is Norway’s most valuable painting, Munch’s most renowned and impossible to sell,” Berg said.

Six years ago, Munch’s painting “The Vampire” was stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo. It was recovered. by police the same year.

Last August, another Munch painting was stolen from the National Gallery. The “Portrait Study” has not been found.