Oh, brother. Today Anthropologie is learning a very important lesson in the art of sourcing the products it sells on its site. Consumerist tipster Mike caught a whiff of what appeared to be a snatch-and-grab case of a big bad retailer swiping an artist’s design, but Anthropologie says it didn’t meant to steal anything, and instead just had an issue with a vendor.

The Australian-based artist’s “The Big Bang” design appears as a print selling for $130 on LittlePaperPlanes.com and then also, lo and behold, on the “Pixiegram” iPhone case that was for sale as of this morning on Anthropologie’s site (it has since been listed as no longer available). There’s no mention of the artist or credit included, so we (and plenty of angry Facebookers) had to wonder if Anthropologie had simply lifted the design.

A company spokeswoman told Consumerist:

“We’re currently looking into the iPhone case, which we purchased from a market vendor. Anthropologie takes the matter very seriously as we pride ourselves on the strong relationship we have with the creative community and the opportunities we offer to artists and designers.”

If this is a case of just not doing enough research before purchasing a product, Anthropologie might want to check out TinEye.com, a site that does a precursory search through the Internet to check if an image is already elsewhere on the Web. It’s a handy tool.

We also reached out to the artist and Little Paper Planes for comment, and will let you know if we hear back with any new information.

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