What Is an Art Collection?

The ubiquity of art collections is not a new phenomenon. There are many reasons for that: personal interest, aesthetic pleasure, investment, study, social prestige, decoration and, of course, safeguarding cultural heritage. Despite the indisputable relevance of art collections to culture and the economy, collections have not been studied a lot in the legal literature. Protecting collections and providing them with legal support requires, first of all, that law understand and conceptualize them, considering the key elements that characterize them and allowing them to be granted the most effective status possible. This text is on the importance of the legal concept of art collection and, by using a comparative law approach, examines it in various legal systems. This article also explores the possibility of protecting art collections as works of the spirit.