The National Gallery of Australia has been given a masterpiece by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, best known for his painting, The Scream, 1893.

Munch’s Man with Horse (1918) was bought for the gallery by philanthropist Geoff Ainsworth. The gallery has declined to reveal the price.

The painting is an example of Munch’s work from this period, when he was working on a series of important compositions featuring his white horse named Rousseau.

Most of the series features Rousseau being put to work, but Man with Horse sees the artist exploring the spiritual relationship between animal and human.

The painting has been in private collections since 1938 and only rarely displayed in public, but was loaned to important Munch exhibitions in the last 60 years, most recently to Edvard Munch: Beyond the Scream (2024) at the Hangaram Art Museum in Seoul, South Korea.

Edvard Munch’s Man with Horse, 1918 is now on display at the National Gallery.