Norway Launches Massive Hunt For Stolen Scream, Madonna

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The Scream stolen is a fragile version, done in tempera and pastel on board. Madonna was painted during the same period and formed part of Munch's Frieze of Life series.

The Munch Museum also possesses a second Scream while a third is at Norway's National Gallery and a fourth in private hands.

Police said they had no idea who was behind the theft as art dealers speculated a ransom might be demanded. The pictures are thought to be too famous to be sold on the black market.

"Most likely, the thieves will demand a ransom to deliver the paintings back," Knut Forsberg, manager of Norwegian auction house Blomqvist Fine Arts, told AP news agency.

A gang stole the National Gallery version in February 1994 but were arrested three months later and the painting recovered intact. A member of the gang, now out of jail, has denied any role in the latest robbery through his lawyer, Reuters adds.

Forsberg valued the stolen Scream - one of four versions completed by Munch in 1893 - at between $60 million and $75 million on the open market.

The ghostly, screaming white figure in front of a red sunset is one of art's most familiar images – a symbol of despair and alienation.

In the aftermath of the raid, police cordoned off the museum, informed Interpol and alerted airports and border crossings.

Police are up against the second Munch theft in a decade The frames which had contained the two paintings were found smashed and discarded outside the museum while the gang's stolen black Audi getaway car was recovered a few kilometres away.

The masked raiders were pictured on closed-circuit television. It has emerged that one of the three gang members spoke during the robbery in Norwegian but a senior detective said the investigation was wide open.

"We're following all possible leads... but we don't know who did this," Detective Chief Inspector Kjell Pedersen told journalists.

Asked about the possibility of a ransom demand, he added: "We have heard nothing."

One witness, 63-year-old Texan businessman Richard Marcus, said the police had taken "a long time" to respond to the raid. Marcus said he had seen one of the robbers "put a gun right behind a guard's head".

Two masked men barged into the museum late in the morning, threatening a guard with a handgun before tearing the paintings off the walls and walking unchallenged out to a car driven by an accomplice, police said.

Meanwhile, the stolen masterpieces were not insured against theft, said officials."The pictures were insured in case of fire or damage from water but not for theft or burglary," said John Oeyaas of Oslo Forsikring, which is responsible for insuring the assets of the city of Oslo.

"They are irreplaceable works and it makes no sense to insure them against theft," he told AFP news agency.

Some experts had speculated on Sunday that as the works should be impossible to sell owing to their fame it was possible the thieves had stolen them with the aim of blackmailing insurance companies.

The collection of the Munch Museum, which comprises 1,100 paintings, 3,000 drawings and 18,000 etchings is insured for 60.45 million euros ($74.3 million) but experts believe that "The Scream" alone is worth that amount.

Munch (1863-1944) painted four versions of the work, of which the Munch Museum held two - the one stolen on Sunday and another in reserve. A private collector owns a third.