Four years later, Edvard Munch’s masterpiece is back on display to be admired. An exhibition welcomes the restored picture after the vicissitudes that it has been through.

Four years have passed since Munch’s most famous painting was stolen from the Munchmuseet, the museum dedicated to the artist in Oslo. On 22^nd August, two gunmen entered the museum rooms and in broad daylight, under the visitors’ eyes, stole the “Scream”, as well as another painting by Munch, the “Madonna”. The robbery left all the museum operators astonished and thorough investigations began immediately. In 2006, the canvases were found by Norwegian police.

After their return to the museum, the paintings were placed in special protective showcases and shown to the public only for five days. Despite the very short duration of the exhibition, it was visited by 5,500 visitors. After that brief exposure, the paintings were carefully analyzed in order to find and classify their damage and assess the entity of it.

In the two years during which the paintings were missing from the museum, they sustained damage that required various interventions. Both canvases painted by Munch were scratched, the paint was chipped in different points and they had moisture damage. The “Scream” also presented a stain caused by a liquid substance that had partly detached the layer of varnish from the canvas, causing risk of further damage in the future.

Therefore, once the canvases were recovered, a slow and intense work of restoration was necessary, and it began with a thorough study of the substances and materials used to realize the paintings and of the agents that were attacking them.

Operating an intervention of preservation on such important paintings is not simple. Indeed, besides the scientific criteria that have to be applied, it is also necessary to keep account of ethical guidelines, universally recognized in the field of art preservation. According to these principles, interventions on works of art have to be minimal and not invasive, in order to avoid altering their original aspect. Moreover, it is necessary to use so-called stable materials, which are long-lasting and do not cause reactions to the picture’s original materials. Nevertheless, all the operations executed have to be reversible; the treatments that are carried out today must not represent a limit for what could be done in the future.

In compliance with these principles, restoring interventions are always decided with the consultation of museum historians, in order to understand how far to go in repairing the damage.

The meticulous work of analysis lasted about a year. Many samples and fragments were taken from the pictures and sent to various international laboratories to find out which substances were deposited on them, how the varnishes were formed and mainly which substance was responsible for the moisture stain on the “Scream”. Indeed, such studies are the essential prerequisite to decide which type of treatment to apply.

The lower right corner of the “Scream” was impossible to repair. On the contrary, the preservation treatments of the “Madonna” have been completed, leaving aside some small touch-ups that will be completed after the summer exhibition.

The studies have also revealed some news, such as a new dating for Munch’s masterpiece.

Despite the damage caused by the theft, according to the curators, the great artistic value of the paintings has not been affected.

Today both canvases are back on display. The exhibition, inaugurated on 23^rd May, is entitled “Scream and Madonna – Revisited” and will go on until the end of September.

(translated by Giorgina Arcuri)