Recent scholarly efforts to identify the antecedents of modern concepts, practices and institutions of cultural heritage in Greco-Roman antiquity appropriately meet the research need to place ancient collecting in dialogue with the current discourse of museum and heritage studies. Our knowledge of Greek and Roman ways of dealing with the artefacts kept in sacred spaces, however, invites us to be cautious when approaching ancient sanctuaries as predecessors of modern institutions such as public art galleries and museums. Through the specific case of the ‘Aphrodite Anadyomene’ painted by Apelles, this paper proposes some reflections on several aspects of collecting in ancient sacred spaces that remain controversial: the impact of celebrated masterpieces of art on Greek and Roman sanctuaries; ancient art tourism; Greco-Roman views on cultural property and its displacement; and ancient attitudes to conservation.