Photographs show damage caused to the paintings Enlarge Image

Masterpieces The Scream and Madonna were stolen by two armed men in a daring daylight raid in 2004.

Police recovered the paintings in August, and Norway's Munch Museum said both works had suffered slight damage.

They will be put on display briefly over the next few weeks as the public is "very curious" to see them, said museum director Ingebjoerg Ydstie.

A photograph released by the museum on Tuesday shows a rip in the canvas of Madonna.

The Scream - painted in 1893 and now one of the world's most recognisable artworks - suffered less significant damage.

"One corner is dented as if someone had dropped it, and then there is some damp damage," Gro Balas, an Oslo culture official, told the Reuters news agency.

'Painstaking restoration'

Experts say they will be able to repair the paintings, but the restoration process will be painstaking and time-consuming.

The paintings were stolen in 2004 by two armed men who ripped them from the museum's wall after threatening a member of staff with a gun.

The robbers pulled the pictures out of their frames, possibly fearing they could have held tracking devices.

After a series of arrests in 2005, three men were found guilty of charges relating to the theft in May this year, receiving prison sentences of between four to eight years.

Police recovered the paintings several months later and handed them back to the Munch Museum.