This has been a big problem with illuminated manuscripts such as books of hours (which represent massive amounts of beautiful medieval art and calligraphy). For

This has been a big problem with illuminated manuscripts such as books of hours (which represent massive amounts of beautiful medieval art and calligraphy). For centuries, some bookdealers have been willing to disbind a complete or nearly complete volume and sell individual leaves, because of course people love to be able to display a beautiful page on their wall. I just went to an antiquarian book fair and there was a dealer selling medieval illuminated manuscript leaves (who's been there for many, many years), with a sign specifically addressing the concern, and basically saying "we didn't do it!". But it's hard to verify and the incentive is still strong, because you can get more from selling a hundred-page illuminated prayerbook as 100 $1000 leaves than as a $40,000 whole. Overall I think people who care about the past in certain ways would prefer for artifacts to remain whole, even if that means we don't get to own them ourselves, much as with King Solomon proposing to cut the baby in half.