The mystery surrounding Munch's “Le Cri” inscription has been resolved.

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Annar Bjoergli / The NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NORWAY / AFP

The mystery had been floating around for years.

"Can only have been painted by a madman": As derogatory as it is imperceptible, the inscription added to

Le Cri 

was not traced by anyone other than the artist himself, Edvard Munch, concluded the National Museum of Norway.

Written in pencil in the left corner at the top of the iconic canvas, which has become a symbol of existential angst, the few words in Norwegian have long fueled conjectures on the identity of their author.

"The inscription is undoubtedly from Munch"

The dominant theory until now has been that they were the legacy of an indignant spectator at the turn of the 20th century by the work which depicts a ghostly figure with a pale face in front of brightly colored celestial vaults.

But an infrared thermography examination, carried out by the National Museum of Norway, which has the concerned version of the

Cri

 - Munch (1863-1944), made four of them - in its collections, led to another conclusion.

“The inscription is without a doubt from Munch,” said curator Mai Britt Guleng in a statement released by the museum on Monday.

“The writing itself, as well as the events that occurred in 1895 when Munch first showed the painting in Norway, all point in the same direction,” she added.

An artist haunted by anguish

The work's first presentation to the public in Oslo - then called Kristiania - that year drew criticism and raised questions about the artist's mental health, which Mai Britt Guleng said led without doubt this one to scribble on the board.

A pioneer of expressionism, Munch was haunted by the feeling of anguish fueled by the untimely death of those close to him, notably that of his mother and his sister Johanne Sophie, who had died from illness.

In 1908, he was even temporarily placed in a psychiatric establishment.

This version of the

Scream

 had been stolen in 1994, the day of the opening of the Lillehammer Winter Olympics, before being found a few months later.

The painting will be exhibited again to the public on the occasion of the opening scheduled for 2022 of the National Museum of Norway, which will bring together the collections of several establishments.

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