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Robbers took the work off the wall in broad daylight |
A gang of robbers is sitting on a version of Edvard Munch's The Scream - valued at between $60m and $75m - after bundling it out of a Norwegian museum. But what can they do with it - and would anyone buy it?
When James Bond villain Dr No displayed Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington in his lair, he launched the myth of masterpieces being "stolen to order" for criminal masterminds.
The painting had just been stolen in real life and the joke for viewers was that Dr No had been behind the heist all along.
Now, every time a high-profile work of art is stolen, the possibility of it being stolen to order by a Mr Big is raised.
It looks good in the movies - but does not happen in real life, according to Jean-Pierre Jouanny, an expert in Interpol's stolen art section.
Instead, there are limited possibilities for a thief with a famous stolen painting on his hands.
The most likely is that it will be held for ransom, with demands for money in exchange for the painting's return, Mr Jouanny said.
"I have been working in this field for 25 years now and very often we have requests for money to exchange the painting."
Well-publicized loot is impossible to sell on the legal market, he said - but as for "the black market, we never know".
The other possibility, Mr Jouanny said, was that the thief may just like the painting.
One man, Stephane Breitwieser, 32, stole hundreds of works of art worth ￡1bn from galleries in France, Germany and Switzerland to hang on his own walls.
But he lived with his mother, who destroyed them because she was afraid the police would find them.
Art and antiques worth ￡300m-500m are stolen in the UK every year, according to the National Criminal Intelligence Service - most by "low level criminals".
But the size of the global art market is also attractive to organised gangs - and stolen items can be moved around the world "with a low risk of detection", a spokesman for the service said.
"We know that organized criminals steal art and antiques to raise funds for other crime," the spokesman said.
And if cash is not forthcoming, gangs have been known to use paintings in deals for weapons or drugs.
