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Art Detectives Recover Lost Masterpieces

Édouard Manet's "Peaches" (1880) was stolen in 1977. ALR recovered it in 1997 after being contacted by a Florida art dealer who was offered the painting for sale.
Édouard Manet's "Peaches" (1880) was stolen in 1977. ALR recovered it in 1997 after being contacted by a Florida art dealer who was offered the painting for sale.

On a quiet Sunday afternoon this summer, armed robbers stormed into a museum in Norway and took two paintings, one of which was Edvard Munch's expressionistic masterpiece "The Scream." As soon as the theft was reported, the painting was entered into what's called the Art Loss Register.

A small for-profit company with offices in New York, Art Loss Register has compiled an enormous database to help track lost or stolen art. Over the years the company has had some notable success locating missing works -- including masterpieces by Cezanne and Manet. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Jim Zarroli is an NPR correspondent based in New York. He covers economics and business news.