Three stolen works of art by Edvard Munch — including a unique watercolor entitled "Blue Dress" — were recovered Monday, less than 24 hours after thieves with crowbars pried them from the walls of an upscale restaurant. It was the second theft of the Norwegian master's work in less than seven months.

　　Iver Stensrud, of the Oslo police, also said several arrests had been made. He declined to be more specific or say what condition the stolen watercolor and two lithographs were in.

　　"We can say the artwork has been recovered," he said. "It was just good police work."

　　Munch's tortured tableaus have proven to be quite a draw for Norway's art thieves. In August, priceless Munch masterpieces "The Scream" and "Madonna" were stolen from a museum in a brazen daylight raid. They have yet to be recovered.

　　The three pieces stolen Sunday night from the restaurant at the upscale Hotel Refnes were valued at about $257,000.

　　The most valuable — the 1915 watercolor "Blue Dress" — is worth as much as $160,857, Munch expert and auctioneer Knut Forsberg said.

　　The other two are lithographs and include a self-portrait and a portrait of Swedish artist August Strindberg.

　　Munch developed an emotionally charged painting style that helped launch the 20th Century Expressionist movement. He died in 1944 at the age of 80, having produced some 1,700 paintings and 30,000 prints.

　　The hotel's owner, Widar Salbuvik, said the thieves used crowbars to pry the artwork off the walls of the restaurant just after it had closed for the night. The hotel is near the city of Moss, about 30 miles south of Oslo.

　　A hotel worker was walking through the restaurant around 11 p.m. Sunday and surprised two unarmed men who had torn the pictures and frames from their security mounts on the walls, police spokesman Jan Pedersen said.

　　"They dropped one, and broke the frame and glass, but took the picture," Pedersen said. Police were searching for two dark-haired men believed to be in their 20s, he said.

　　The August theft of "The Scream" and "Madonna" from the Munch Museum raised concerns about security in the art world, as three armed robbers grabbed the valuable pieces in broad daylight.