Thread by @DHStokyo

There was a time when I was studying Art History, that I thought about a career at Interpol, helping to recover stolen art and artifacts.

So stories like the one involving Hobby Lobby and Middle Eastern artifacts have always caught my eye. // thread

When you buy art, it's really important to know where it came from. Ideally, you want to be able to trace who has owned it since it was originally purchased from the artist (or discovered when dealing with ancient artifacts.) 2/x

For example, during WWII, the Nazi's stole a lot of priceless artwork, particularly from Jewish families. None of that work should ever go on the open market, but instead be returned to the rightful families. 3/x

The Looted Art Database keeps photographs of all artwork that has been declared stolen or missing from WWII. Basically, by publishing these pictures, they become unsellable on the open market. 4/x

You can check out the database here: lostart.de/Webs/DE/LostAr…

Museums also use this, and other databases, whenever people offer art to them. They have to trace ownership (the fancy word is provenance) to make sure they aren't acquiring art that has been stolen. 5/x

Well, I should say, REPUTABLE museums do this. And this is where Hobby Lobby comes into the story.

The CEO of Hobby Lobby is Steve Green, who is evangelical. (You might remember the famous birth control case he took to the Supreme Court.) 6/x
obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/06/3…

Starting around 2010, the Greens acquired thousands of biblical artifacts from the Middle East. In 2017, Green opened the Museum of the Bible in DC. 7/x

Now, a collector and certainly one who intended to open a museum with these artifacts would have wanted to be sure that these artifacts were not stolen.

Did Green do his due diligence? 8/x

The looting of antiquities in the Middle East has been rampant, especially in Iraq. You might remember after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, the National Museum of Iraq was looted. 15,000 items were taken, and only half of them have been recovered. 9/x

One group that has been making hundreds of millions selling artifacts? ISIS.

Now, while there is nothing in the Hobby Lobby situation to connect them with the terrorist group, the fact that the provenance of their artifacts is muddy is problematic. 10/x
newsweek.com/isis-makes-100…

The provenance of some of the objects that Green bought were so problematic that in 2018 our DOJ filed a civil action against Hobby Lobby to return 3,800 objects to Iraq for having been "illegally obtained." 11/x
vox.com/2018/5/2/17310…

Hobby Lobby tried to claim ignorance: “The Company was new to the world of acquiring these items, and did not fully appreciate the complexities of the acquisitions process. This resulted in some regrettable mistakes.”

Riiiight. 12/x

As only one example that tells me they knew EXACTLY what they were doing, was that they shipped the artifacts to multiple locations in the U.S. and labeled them "Tile Samples."

Does this look like a tile sample to you? 13/x

Anyway, thanks for indulging me as a I tell an art history story. This is one of several reasons why I won't spend a dime in Hobby Lobby.

If you want to read more of the details, check out this article from @TheAtlantic. // end
theatlantic.com/politics/archi…