'Ordinary', 'insignificant' and 'useless' artefacts from Rome and Athens: Trading antiquities and reshaping scholarship in the long nineteenth century

The edicts relating to the protection of antiquities and works of art published in the Papal States and in Greece in the nineteenth century were the first inclusive regulations in the world on the management and supervision of cultural heritage. Their aim was to control and reduce the massive exportation of artefacts that had despoiled both countries. However, the continuing stream of exports that followed the issuing of these regulations shows that their impact was limited. Questions of taste and aesthetics were introduced that allowed the disposal of the 'insignificant', 'useless', 'multiple' and 'ordinary' pieces considered unworthy of protection. Analysis of several such cases approved for export from Rome and Athens identifies a number of legal loopholes and artistic formulae that were adduced in order to circumvent the edicts, and contributes to an understanding of the impact of new approaches to art history scholarship on both the law and the nineteenth-century art market.