database of missing and stolen art. The ALR has
assisted in the recovery of hundreds of paintings and
other artefacts – including, most recently, a Matisse
taken from Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art in
1987.
Radcliffe admits that paintings are superficially
attractive targets: “Nowhere else do you find millions
of dollars just hanging on a wall, so the actual theft is
a very low-risk enterprise – especially during opening
hours when, if the thieves are armed, the priority is
to get them out of the building as fast as possible, to
protect the gallery’s other visitors.”
It’s profiting from the crime afterwards that is
tricky. “I’ve had lots of contact with people who’ve
stolen art or financed the stealing of art,” says
Radcliffe. “They haven’t usually thought through
what they’re going to do with it.”
In 2006, six men went on trial charged with
the theft of
The Scream
,
though at that point it
was still missing. Three were acquitted, among
themwell-known drag racer Thomas Nataas, who
persuaded the court he’d hidden the paintings in his
Batmobile-themed tour bus because his life had been
threatened. Three were convicted. Petter Rosenvinge
got four years for knowingly selling the getaway car
to the thieves. Petter Tharaldsen, who drove the car,
was sentenced to eight years. Bjorn Hoen, the alleged
ringleader, received seven years. In a bid to prompt
them to part with information about the whereabouts
of their loot, Tharaldsen and Hoen were also told that,
pending the recovery of the paintings, they would
have to pay a fine of NOK750m to the city.
The pair was spared this daunting expense in
August 2006, when Oslo police received a tip-off.
They’d worked hard for this lead, running the
biggest surveillance operation in Norwegian history,
tapping more than 70,000 phone calls. Norwegian
newspapers at the time reported that the source
was a lawyer acting for David Toska, the leader of a
violent raid on the NOKAS cash depot in Stavanger
in April 2004 – the biggest heist to ever take place in
Norway and a crime that had resulted in the death
of a police officer. Police had long thought there
might be a link between the crimes, speculating that
lifting the famous paintings was intended to divert
attention and resources from the investigation into
the cash heist.
This theory was reinforced by the sorry state
The
Scream
was in when it was returned to the Munch
Museum – its captors certainly hadn’t treated the
painting as if they valued it. “There were several
damages,” says the Munch Museum’s Biljana
Topalova-Casadiego, who oversaw the painstaking
restoration process. “The most obvious was damage
by liquid in the lower left-hand corner, but the paint
surface was cut in several areas where the protective
glass in the frame had been broken – the thieves had
tried to get rid of the frame, I think because they were
worried it had a tracking device. And then it was
stored for two years in conditions quite demanding
for such a fragile piece. But it could have been worse
–
we’d heard so many rumours about it being burned
or destroyed.”
»
“
It could have been worse
–
we’d heard so many
rumours about it being
burned or destroyed”
Top
⁄
Painstaking restoration
work was undertaken on
The
Scream
,
but its delicate state
–
it was painted on cardboard –
means it can never be returned
fully to its original condition
Above
⁄
Madonna
,
which was
stolen in the same theft but also
recovered in 2006
n
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