[MSN] The Scream's value unstained by theft damage

[MSN]

The Scream's value unstained by theft damage
By Gethin Chamberlain in Oslo
Last Updated: 12:31am BST 06/04/2008

First, the bad news: Edvard Munch's most famous painting, The Scream, is
damaged beyond repair.

Four years after it was stolen in an armed raid on an Oslo museum, and two
years after Norwegian police found it, scratched and water-damaged,
conservators have told The Sunday Telegraph there is nothing more they can
do to restore what is undoubtedly one of the most recognisable paintings in
the world. 	

Telegraph TV: Munch's Scream repaired

Unlikely as it might seem, however, there is some good news for Munch fans:
art experts believe the damage may have added to the value of a painting
that was already estimated to be worth up to £50 million.

As final preparations are made to put the 1893 masterpiece back on show next
month, The Scream's keepers are nervously awaiting the public's verdict.
Despite the skill and dedication of a restoration team who have worked
tirelessly to repair most of the damage, the bottom-left corner of the
painting has been washed out and left scarred by a dirty brown water mark.

Under normal circumstances, the team would have used suction techniques to
wash away the mark, drawing the moisture out through the back of the canvas.
But Munch painted The Scream on cardboard and glued it to a board: the only
possible approach is from the front, and the risk of creating more damage is
considered too great.

Ingebjørg Ydstie, the director of Oslo's Munch Museum, from which the
painting was stolen in 2004, said they had decided to restrict conservation
work to an absolute minimum and do nothing that could not be reversed.

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"In my view it does not take anything away from the strong expression, the
sky like flames... we don't think it is of any less artistic value," she
said. "We are prepared for a debate around the damage, but in our view it is
not a change in the value of the painting.

"We are used now to the water mark and have decided not to do anything with
it.

The major expression of the painting is more or less the same and it is
still a strong image. Maybe all these spectacular events and crime stories
have lent an additional popular knowledge and increased the general
interest."

Her optimism was shared by the art expert Charles Dupplin, of the
London-based insurance company, Hiscox.

"Notoriety can indeed increase the value of a painting because I think
people do like having things that are slightly notorious," he said. "In this
instance, although there is significant damage, it has certainly added to
the general interest and possibly the value of this particular painting."

It will not be the first time that a painting's worth has increased as a
result of apparent misfortune. A quarter of a century after a woman put a
bullet through

a stack of Andy Warhol paintings in his New York studio, one of the damaged
works - a picture of Marilyn Monroe which was by then known as Shot Red
Marilyn - fetched more than $4 million at auction in 1989, a then-record
price for the artist.

Experts believe that most of the damage to The Scream was caused during the
robbery itself, when two armed men grabbed it and another Munch painting,
the £5 million Madonna, from the walls of the museum and ran to a waiting
getaway car, breaking the frames as they made their escape. Three men were
later jailed in connection with the robbery, though the two gunmen were
never caught.

The museum was closed for a year while security was completely overhauled
and when the paintings were recovered in 2006, work to restore them began
almost immediately.

Locked inside a bright, white-walled room which was protected by
fingerprint-activated locks on heavy steel doors, in carefully controlled
levels of humidity and temperature, the team pored over the painting using
high-powered microscopes, examining every inch for signs of damage before
starting the painstaking job of tackling the tears and scratches disfiguring
the masterpieces.

Working with tiny surgical tools under strong magnifying glasses, they used
an adhesive made from a mix of wheat and sturgeon to reattach torn threads
on the Madonna canvas. Paste made from the fish can generate an
exceptionally sticky glue.

Where the paint on The Scream was scratched and flaking, a paste of rice
starch was carefully applied to hold it together. But the biggest problem
remained the water mark and faded bottom-left corner of the painting. Tests
carried out in several laboratories, including one in Britain, established
that water was indeed the cause of the damage, and that it had left a faded
matt layer - in strong contrast to the gloss on the rest of the painting.

Exactly how the water damage occurred is unknown. Gry Landro, 36, the
museum's paper conservator, said they had decided to live with it. "I don't
think it is too bad, I think it is part of the painting now, but it will be
interesting to see how the public reacts," she said.

"I think there will be a lot of, 'Wow, it's really intrusive, why couldn't
you remove it?' It is part of our job to try to explain why it is still
there. I think it is much wiser to leave it when you are not sure how to do
it in a safe way."

Not that Munch would have minded that much. He once drove a nail through the
top of the painting in order to hang it on a wall.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

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http://www.museum-security.org
http://www.museumbeveiliging.com
http://www.handboekveiligheidszorgmusea.nl
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