Two men have been arrested in connection with the 2009 theft of a valuable work by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch.
The Norwegian police spokeswoman Unni Groendal said the men are suspected of handling stolen goods, AP reported.
Groendal added that the hand-colored Munch lithography ‘History’ has been recovered but declined to elaborate.
In 2009, Norwegian burglars smashed an Oslo art gallery’s window with a rock and made off with the 1914 the hand-colored lithograph.
The work depicts an elderly bearded man perched on a rock underneath a tree, speaking to a young boy. It is estimated to be worth about $240,000.
Munch’s works has been a popular target for art thieves. The most notorious theft was in 2004 when gunmen stole the masterpieces ‘The Scream’ and ‘Madonna’ in a brazen midday raid on Oslo’s Munch Museum.
Another version of ‘The Scream’ - Munch painted several - was taken from Norway’s National Gallery in 1994 by two thieves who left behind a postcard that read “thanks for the poor security.” One of the thieves had previously served a four-year sentence for the theft of Munch’s ‘The Vampire’ in 1988.
All of the artworks have been recovered and lax museum security upgraded.