The theft of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" from an Oslo museum on 22 August 2004, along with a second Munch canvas, was the painting's second disappearance. An earlier version was taken from the Oslo National Gallery in February 1994 and recovered intact three months later.
The incidents fit a longer pattern. Seven Impressionist works, including four by Claude Monet and two by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, were taken from the Marmottan Museum in Paris in November 1985, collectively valued at over 30 million euros. The costliest single theft came in March 1990, when 11 masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, and Manet were removed from the Gardner Museum in Boston, worth around 100 million euros combined. None has been recovered.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam was raided twice. In April 1991, thieves took 20 canvases and abandoned them in a car hours later, three of them damaged. A December 2002 raid took two more paintings, neither of which has been found.
Several major thefts did end in recovery. Eight Matisses taken from the Nice museum in December 1989 were found 12 days later. The Mona Lisa, removed from the Louvre in August 1911, was returned in December 1913.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in August 2004, in its own words.