'The Scream' found

The Scream and another stolen masterpiece by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch were recovered by police yesterday, 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 yesterday 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.

Two of them were ordered to pay $122 million in damages. The police said an expert at the Munch Museum had examined the pictures and judged them authentic. A scientific examination will also be carried out to verify the works.

Munch painted two famous versions of The Scream, including the one recovered yesterday.

The other was stolen in 1994 from Oslo's National Gallery by thieves who simply broke a window and climbed in with a ladder. It was recovered after several months by police posing as buyers.

Mr Stensrud declined to answer questions about media reports last week that a jailed bank robber, David Toska, had promised information about the paintings if he won a reduced sentence.