Richard Lacayo points to a long article this weekend in The Guardian about the 2004 theft of The Scream from the Munch Museum in Oslo. He summarizes the two main points:
1. "The painting may have been stolen not for its own sake, but to draw off Norwegian police resources from an investigation into a notorious robbery and killing that had taken place earlier that year."
2. "Damage to the painting is worse than we thought. ... 'A huge watery stain, like a watermark on a teabag, seeps over the bottom left-hand corner, on the walkway and even on the lower part of the figure. Pigment has dissolved or been washed away.'"
