Museum officials announced that the paintings, which were stolen two years ago and found on August 31, will be exhibited "for a short period" later this autumn in their current condition.
The museum said it had agreed with both Oslo police and the city's cultural authorities that public interest in the paintings and in their condition after the robbery was too high to delay an exhibition until repairs are made.
"The enormous interest... and the fact that it will take time before we can again exhibit them after repairs... prompted the museum to show them to the public and the media" now, wrote officials in a press statement Tuesday.
The exact dates of the public exhibition have yet to be set, but it likely will last only a week. The paintings won't be hung, according to the museum, but rather will be displayed lying on a special and secure display table.
The photos of the paintings, which have been undergoing police examination since they were found August 31, clearly show the dog-eared corner of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch’s most famous work, "The Scream."
A hole in the canvas of the other Munch masterpiece that was stolen, "Madonna," is also clearly visible in the photos.
Museum officials earlier have expressed confidence, however, that the paintings can be restored to the condition they were in before armed and masked robbers tore them off the walls of the Munch Museum on a Sunday morning in August 2004.
