Fans flock to Munch Museum to see damaged Scream, Madonna

Oslo's Munch Museum saw a massive spike in attendance over the past five daysas it displayed the recently recovered paintings The Scream and Madonna.

Museum officials said Monday that about 5,500 people dropped in between Wednesday and Sunday.

"That's more than for the whole month of September 2005," when the two masterpieces were still missing, museum spokeswoman Jorunn Christoffersen said, according to Agence France Presse.

Police recovered the two artworks in late August, almost two years after masked and armed thieves ripped the canvasses off the museum's walls during a daring daytime robbery that took place before stunned visitors and staff.

Though the two workswere damaged in the theft, museum officials decided to display them for a short period before beginning restoration because of the intense public interest and curiosity about the state of the famed paintings.

The two were displayed lying flat under glass and with their frames removed, because experts said they were too fragile to be hung.

Madonna suffered a scratch and a small tear that has left a hole in the canvas, while The Scream appears slightly crumpled from moisture damage in its bottom left corner.

The two late-19th century expressionist works will now head to restoration experts, with repair work expected to take up to a year.

In May, three men were convicted for taking part in the theft. After the robbery in August 2004, the Oslo museum underwent major security revisions. Valuable works are now displayed behind glass and visitors entering the display area must pass through a metal detector.