The world’s great museums are full of art and artifacts that were plundered during an era when plunder was the norm. Now there’s a push to return these works to their rightful owners. Sounds simple, right? It's not. (Part 2 of “Stealing Art Is Easy. Giving It Back Is Hard.”)
Last episode, we began with a simple question.
How do the artworks and artifacts that you see in a museum wind up in a museum?
For a long time, the entire art world didn't ask questions.
The Met got fooled by not probing deeply enough into the purported history that.
Was given to us.
Guess what?
My kids know it's looted.
The museum world is changing.
Museums are now returning dozens of objects every single year.
It's like Olympic games for restitution.
Even though technically we legally acquired these.
The origins of the acquisition was illegal, so therefore everything else was tainted as well.
Today on freakonomics radio, we will explore one dramatic case that isn't settled yet.
The disruption of the attack on the kingdom cannot be overemphasized.
Most important pieces went directly to the british museum.
They even took the bolts from the doors.
It turns out that stealing art can be relatively easy.
But giving it back, that's the hard part.
If the job is to purify yourself by getting rid of the art, yeah, put it in a pit, melt it.
The second episode in our series about returning art starts right now.