by Pierre-Henry Deshayes
OSLO, Aug 23 (AFP) - Norwegian police hunting for two world-famous paintings by artist Edvard Munch, stolen at the weekend in the country`s first-ever armed museum robbery, said on Monday they had no clue what the thieves were going to do with their priceless bounty.
"The Scream", one of the most famous images ever painted, and "Madonna" were grabbed Sunday morning by armed and hooded thieves who burst into the Munch Museum in the Norwegian capital, threatening a member of staff with a gun.
Norwegian media said police believed the theft to have been either a contract job, a theft for ransom, or a publicity-seeking exercise.
"It is clear that several motives are possible. These are three lines of inquiry that we are following, but there could be others," Iver Stensrud, inspector at the Oslo police`s organised crime squad, told AFP.
No demand for ransom had been received by Monday evening, he said.
The pictures, whose combined value is estimated at up to 100 million dollars (80 million euros), were not insured against theft or burglary.
"The Scream" has become an iconic symbol of Expressionist angst, showing an individual on a bridge, hands clasped around the head and mouth wide open in an apparent yell of despair.
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.
The fourth, and best-known, version of the oil painting hangs in the Oslo National Gallery, from where it was stolen in 1994, to be recovered intact three months later.
"There are rich eccentrics who would love paintings like these for their collections," said private detective Leif Lier, who has researched the 1994 theft.
But Charles Hill, detective at Britain`s Scotland Yard, said this was a myth. "Rich eccentrics owning large collections of stolen art in their basements don`t exist," he told Norwegian radio NRK.
"There is no market for works like these. There is no secret Mr No or Dr Big or anybody like that in the Venezuelan jungle. These guys steal those things as trophies," he said.
"This is not the work of the Mafia, but of burglars or criminals who thought they could make a good profit," agreed Bernard Darties of the French office against the traffic of cultural goods.
"They didn`t realise that this work is impossible to sell on."
Police were also puzzled by a number of shortcomings in the execution of the theft, raising the possibility that the robbers could have been amateurs.
Norwegian media reported that one of the robbers walked into a glass door, perhaps not knowing which way it opened, while another criss-crossed the museum`s exhibition hall, apparently unable to locate the two famous paintings immediately.
But some things also point the other way, notably the fact that the getaway car was stolen months before and fitted with stolen number plates, according to Stensrud.
Passers-by managed to take photographs of two thieves in the street, each carrying one of the paintings, awaited by a third man in a black car.
Police said they did not know whether the paintings were still in Norway.
Those responsible for the museum`s security have drawn criticism for the apparent ease with which the thieves took the paintings.
They were on display a short walk from the main entrance, secured with what one witness described as simple metallic cords. No alarm rang out when the works were ripped from the wall.
"We have not protected our cultural treasures adequately. We must learn the lessons," Norwegian Culture Minister Valgerd Svarstad Haugland said.
Police countered the criticism, saying that "The Scream" was connected to a silent alarm system.
The head of the city of Oslo`s art collection Lise Mjoes meanwhile pointed out that this was the "first armed robbery committed in a museum throughout Norway`s history", insisting that security measures had been taken "to the extent that could have been predicted".
By contrast, however, other international galleries use bullet-proof glass, cameras and guards to protect each work of art.