OSLO—Works by Edvard Munch have increased in price as a result of the 2004 robbery of The Scream and Madonna, the Art Newspaper reports. Another piece by Munch, Girls on a Bridge, sold for $30.8 million at Sotheby’s. It was previously sold for $7.7 million in 1996.
“[Munch's] works got a lot of attention from the robbery at the Munch Museum in 2004,” said Knut Forsberg, director of Blomqvist Auctions in Oslo. “Attention always draws prices up.”
However, Sotheby’s Oslo representative said that “important exhibitions and the Olsen sale [the auction of Munch works by shipping entrepreneur Fred Olsen in February 2006]” were more significant factors than the thefts.