Selling archaeology and anthropology: early medieval artefacts at the Expositions universelles and the Wiener Weltausstellung, 1867–1900

Abstract

The archaeological and anthropological exhibits included in the four Expositions universelles held in Paris between 1867 and 1900 and the Wiener Weltausstellung in the Austro‐Hungarian capital in 1873, contributed to the commercialization of antiquarianism and granted international attention to the amateur practitioners of these emerging disciplines. Displays of archaeological artefacts and human remains from the migration period and the early Middle Ages, juxtaposed with more exotic ‘primitive’ art, permitted organizers to broaden the aesthetic sensibilities of fairgoers and promote the acquisition of native antiquities. Exhibiting private collections of early medieval objects likewise justified nineteenth‐century concepts of French and ‘pan‐Germanic’ identity by linking them to iconic artefacts and romanticizing the barbarity of this distant epoch.

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