The recovery of looted artefacts is often accompanied by many underlying political dimensions – both on the part of the party requesting return & of the current holders.

From:
Democracy Arsenal

March 02, 2009
Stolen Art and International Relations
Posted by Hanna Lundqvist

The looting of art and historical artifacts is often dismissed as a factor in international relations. Having studied art history in college and now working in foreign policy, I feel that when dealing with an issue portfolio that includes nuclear proliferation, war, economic crises, and global warming, the lower priority of art and culture is usually reasonable – however, this does not mean that the problem of looting should be entirely ignored, particularly because of the strong ties between art and national pride. Stolen art is not merely of concern due to the loss of object context for art historians and archeologists or cultural patrimony. Though usually rightly on the back-burner, looted art is a legitimate and often hot-tempered foreign policy issue.
Read the rest of this entry »