Soul food

What is it about the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch that makes his works so attractive to thieves? You would have thought that the underworld would have preferred something brasher or more decorous than Munch's exercises in pain and angst. But no. Hard after the theft of his famous 'Scream' and 'Madonna' canvases comes the latest theft - and subsequent recovery - of three of his works from an Oslo restaurant. The lure of the name, perhaps, especially on an eatery wall? Or is it that the thieves, or their patrons, are not at all the smooth professionals of popular legend, but anguished minds sensitive to the tortured soul?

What is it about the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch that makes his works so attractive to thieves? You would have thought that the underworld would have preferred something brasher or more decorous than Munch's exercises in pain and angst. But no. Hard after the theft of his famous 'Scream' and 'Madonna' canvases comes the latest theft - and subsequent recovery - of three of his works from an Oslo restaurant. The lure of the name, perhaps, especially on an eatery wall? Or is it that the thieves, or their patrons, are not at all the smooth professionals of popular legend, but anguished minds sensitive to the tortured soul?