Dr Adriano Aymonino is Programme Director of the MA Art Market, Provenance and the History of Collecting, University of Buckingham. His publications include Drawn from the Antique: Artists and the Classical Ideal (Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2015); Enlightened Eclecticism (Yale University Press, 2021 – winner of the 2022 William MB Berger Prize for British Art History) and a revised and updated edition of Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny’s Taste and the Antique (Brepols, 3 vols, 2024). He is currently working on a critical edition of Robert and James Adam's Grand Tour correspondence (Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2025), and on new book, Paper Marbles: Pier Leone Ghezzi’s “Studio di Molte Pietre”, 1726 (MIT Press 2026). He is an associate editor for the Journal for the History of Collections (Oxford UP); a member of the advisory councils of the Museo del Bargello in Florence, and of the Attingham Trust.

Emerson Bowyer is Searle Curator, Painting and Sculpture of Europe, at the Art Institute of Chicago. A specialist in 18th- and 19th-century French and British art, he has previously worked at the Frick Collection, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His exhibitions include David d’Angers: Making the Modern Monument (Frick Collection, 2013); Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (Met Breuer, 2018); Canova: Sculpting in Clay (NGA and Art Institute, 2023-24); and Camille Claudel (Art Institute and Getty, 2023-24). He is currently working on an exhibition focused on Vilhelm Hammershøi’s paintings of his apartment at Strandgade 30 in Copenhagen (forthcoming, Art Institute and the Frick Collection, 2027-28).

Toby Capwell is an independent scholar and leading authority on medieval and Renaissance arms and armour. Over the last thirty years he has worked with many of the world's great collections, including the Imperial Armoury in Vienna, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Armouries in Leeds, and has served as curator of Glasgow Museums and the Wallace Collection, where he worked for sixteen years until January 2023. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Armourers in London. He is the author of many books on armour, weapons and tournaments, has curated numerous exhibitions, and frequently appears in film, television and online media.

Instagram @tobiascapwell

Angela Caròla-Perrotti is a graduate in Literature with a specialisation in Art History from the University of Lausanne, she has dedicated herself to the in-depth study of Neapolitan porcelain, publishing essays and monographs on the Royal Factory of Capodimonte, the Royal Ferdinandea Factory and the private manufactories active in Naples during the first half of the 19th century.

Of particular note are: Two essays that appeared in volumes VIII and IX of ‘Storia di Napoli’ (1970 and 1972); ‘La Porcellana della Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea’ (1978); Catalogue of the exhibition ‘Le Porcellane dei Borbone di Napoli: Capodimonte e Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea’ (1986); ‘Neapolitan Porcelain of the 19th Century’ (1990); The cataloguing of the Bourbon Collection of the Capodimonte Museum in ‘Ceramics: National Museum of Capodimonte’ ( 2006); ‘The art of setting the table and the “Dessert for 60 covers” of the Bourbons of Naples’ (2017); In addition to numerous writings on the occasion of exhibitions held in Italy, France and Germany.

Ivan Day is well known in the museum world for his recreations of period table settings. His work has been widely exhibited in Britain, the US and Europe. Recent installations have been the Edible Monument at the Getty Research Institute (2015), Detroit Institute of Arts (2016) and the Fitzwilliam Museum (2019-20). He also worked with Meredith Chilton on an English dessert table at the Gardiner Museum. He is the Chair of the Leeds Symposium on Food History and Traditions.

Dr. Katharina Hantschmann has studied history, art history and archeology in Munich, Rome and Basel and took her doctorate with a thesis on the Nymphenburg porcelain manufactory in the first half of the 19th century including artistic and economic aspects. Since 1994 she is curator, since 2008 senior curator of the ceramic department at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, responsible also for the Meissen Porcelain Collection Ernst Schneider Bequest at Lustheim Castle, north of Munich. She has contributed to various exhibitions and publications such as “Bustelli”, “Fired by passion” or “400 years China and Bavaria”. Her special interests include table culture and other questions on court life, the history of the Wittelsbach dynasty in European context, German porcelain and faiences.

J.V.G Mallet F.R.S.A and F.S.A. worked in the Ceramics and Works of Art Department at Sotheby’s (1955-62) before moving to the Department of Ceramics and Glass in the Victoria and Albert Museum, of which he became Keeper (1976 to 1989). He has served as President of the English Ceramics Circle, is a past Prime Warden of the Fishmongers’ Company in the City of London and an Honorary Fellow of Baillol College, Oxford. His publications cover such subjects as Chelsea Porcelain, Italian maiolica and Studio Pottery, besides a small volume of poems, Another Life. His exhibition with accompanying catalogue Xanto Pottery-painter, poet, man of the Italian Renaissance was held at the Wallace Collection in 2007.

Sir Jonathan Marsden was Director of the Royal Collection and Surveyor of The Queen’s Works of Art from 2010 to 2017, having previously served as Deputy Surveyor since 1996. He was a Historic Buildings Representative for the National Trust from 1986 until 1996. His catalogue of European Sculpture in the Royal Collection will appear in September 2025.

Roger Massey worked as a lawyer in London but now devotes his time to his real passions of history and ceramics. He has lectured and published extensively on 18th century English pottery and porcelain. He was formerly President of the English Ceramic Circle.

Stacey Pierson is Professor of the History of Chinese Ceramics at SOAS, University of London. In addition to teaching and supervising research students in the School of Arts, she is the former President of the Oriental Ceramic Society (London) and is series editor for the Routledge title Histories of Material Culture and Collecting, 1550-1950. Previously, from 1995 – 2007, she was Curator of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese art, also at the University of London, which housed the world-renowned David collection of Chinese ceramics. She has published widely on aspects of Chinese ceramics, Percival David and the history of collecting and exhibitions, including Collectors, Collections and Museums: the Field of Chinese Ceramics in Britain: 1560-1960 (2007), Chinese Ceramics: a Design History (2009), From Object to Concept: Global Consumption and the Transformation of Ming Porcelain (2013), Private Collecting, Exhibitions and the Shaping of Art History in London: the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1866-1950 (2017) and the edited volume Visual, Material and Textual Cultures of Food and Drink in China, 200 BCE – 1900 CE, Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, no. 25 (2022). Her most recent research project focused on Dr Johnson’s Chinese teapot, which is on display in the British Museum.

Justin Raccanello is a London-based antique dealer, author, and independent scholar specialising in ceramics, particularly tin-glazed pottery like maiolica, faience, and delftware. He has a strong presence in the art world, frequently participating in prestigious fairs like TEFAF, Frieze Masters, and London Art Week. Raccanello co-directs Raccanello Leprince, a gallery that showcases Renaissance pottery, emphasizing quality and rarity to appeal to collectors, connoisseurs, and museum curators.

Raccanello has also written extensively on ceramics and their historical significance, contributing essays and lectures on the topic, such as the evolution and spread of tin-glazed pottery across Europe. He is a graduate of the Christie's Fine Arts Course and is well-regarded for his expertise in ceramics from the Renaissance to the 18th century.

Linda H. Roth is the Charles C. and Eleanor Lamont Cunningham Curator of European Decorative Arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Roth holds a B.A. from Bowdoin College and an M.A. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. At the Wadsworth Atheneum she has organized several exhibitions and gallery installations with particular focus on the collector J. Pierpont Morgan. Her scholarship and publications focus on 18th -and 19th-century Sèvres porcelain, Pierpont Morgan’s London house, and the French ceramist Taxile Doat.

Dr. Sani worked in the curatorial department of the Wallace Collection from 2003 to 2006. While there she helped organise and contributed to the catalogue of J.V.G. Mallet’s exhibition on Xanto. From 2006 to 2012 she was an Assistant Curator of Ceramics and Glass in the Victoria and Albert Museum. More recently she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Courtauld and now collaborates with the Rothschild Foundation at Waddesdon Manor. Among her publications are on the V&A collection Italian maiolica (2012) of the Courtauld Gallery (2023) and with Timothy Wilson on the collections of Italian maiolica of the Fondazione Perugia (2006-7) 

Dr Sani and John Mallet were joint editors of Maiolica in Italy and Beyond, Papers delivered as a Festschrift for Timothy Wilson (2021)

Dr. Timothy Schroder is a lecturer and writer. Most of his career has been focused on silver, at Christie’s, as a dealer, and in the museum sector in the USA and the UK. He is a trustee of the Wallace Collection, president of the Silver Society and a member of the Fabric Commission of Westminster Abbey; he served two terms as Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company. His book on gold and silver at the court of Henry VIII was published by Boydell & Brewer in 2020.

Dr Heike Zech FSA is a museum curator and art historian. A native of Germany, she completed her PhD while working at Sotheby’s Munich. Between 2008 and 2017, Heike held various curatorial positions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, most recently as Senior Curator of the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection. In 2017, she became a museum consultant for the State of Bavaria. In 2018, she joined the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, as Keeper of Decorative Arts before 1800. Since 2019, she is also the museum’s Head of Exhibitions and Deputy Director General. Throughout her career the decorative arts, particularly silver and goldboxes, have been a primary focus of her work, including exhibitions and publications.

Dr Adriano Aymonino

Classical statues are the most imitated and emulated works of art in early modern Europe. For more than five centuries, from the early Renaissance to the end of the nineteenth century, artists and theoreticians used the Antique as a benchmark to meditate on concepts of imitation and individual creativity in the visual arts. Focusing on a few symbolic examples, this paper explores the phenomenon of adapting classical marble or bronze statues in a variety of media with different characteristics: from drawings and prints to plaster, wood, ivory, porcelain, glass and precious stones. What happens to the Antique when it is imitated or emulated in materials with traditions and representational conventions different from those of marble and bronze? How do different materials and techniques reinforce or challenge the concept and practice of imitating canonical models?

Image: Francesco Maria Gaetano Ghinghi, Bust of the Venus de’ Medici, early eighteenth century, amethyst, tuff, antique green, chiselled and gilded bronze, h. 55.5 cm, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, Grünes Gewölbe (no. V592)

Emerson Bowyer

Antonio Canova’s fame has always been tied to marble. Yet, underlying each polished stone statue was the more humble medium of clay. This talk explores the crucial and understudied role of clay within Canova’s studio, especially his quick compositional sketches in that material. Often produced at a lightning pace to capture his ideas, they are in many ways the antithesis of his exquisitely finished marbles. With surfaces pinched, pressed, gouged, and scraped, these sketches are visceral and expressionistic.  Although never publicly exhibited or commercially marketed during his lifetime, they are extraordinary works of art in themselves. 

Image: Antonio Canova, Italian, 1757–1822, “Adam and Eve Mourning the Dead Abel,” about 1818–22, terracotta, 22 × 30 × 18 cm (8 11/16 × 11 13/16 × 7 1/16 in.). Museo Gypsotheca Antonio Canova, Possagno, Inv. no. 286. Photography by Luigi Spina

Dr. Tobias Capwell

Armour was both equipment for fighting and expressive art of great power. By the sixteenth century, the art of the armourer in southern Germany had attained unrivalled technical sophistication, artistic conception, and decorative richness.

The centre of the German Renaissance armour world was Augsburg, whose community of virtuoso armourers were led by the Helmschmid family – several of whose members are counted amongst the greatest ever masters of their art.

Most notably, Lorenz Helmschmid and his son Kolman served as court armourers to the German Emperor Maximilian I, with Kolman succeeding as master after his father’s death and going on, with his son Desiderius, to create armour masterpieces for the Emperor Charles V and Prince Philip of Spain, amongst many other important clients.

In this talk we encounter the outstanding creations of these extraordinary sculptors in metal, and consider their significance to the wider artistic culture of their time, and beyond.

Image: Detail of an armour in the ‘Landsknecht’ style, made by Kolman Helmschmid, Augsburg, c. 1525. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 24.179; 26.188.1, .2; 29.158.363a, b.

Angela Caròla-Perrotti

Towards the end of the 18th century, following the widespread success of biscuit reproductions of renowned works of ancient statuary, it became fashionable in Naples to reproduce in terracotta the famous vases excavated under the direction of Domenico Venuti - Director of the Royal Porcelain Manufacture and General Director of Archeological Excavations . In some cases the vases were collected for the Bourbon Museum and in others, by royal concession, they went to various private collectors such as William Hamilton.

From the early years of the 19th century, driven by Carolina Murat's passion for both Attic and Sicilian vases, the various local manufactories of earthenware and terracotta, which were established after the closure of the Bourbon porcelain Manufacture , started a flourishing production of the so-called ‘Etruscan-style’ vases, perfectly copied after the most important specimens kept in the Royal Archaeological Museum, along with some imaginatively reworked interpretations.

On the basis of signed vases, the author attempts to distinguish the main characteristics that characterise the best-known manufactures in order to proceed to more articulate attributions.

Image: Faithful reproduction of the ancient ‘Stamnos’ from the Nola excavations made around 1830 by the Neapolitan terracotta manufacturer Mollica . Signed ‘Pasquale Mollica’.

Ivan Day

Corrado (1736-1836) was a cook and confectioner who worked for a number of Neapolitan noble families. In this important work, he suggests twelve iconographic schemes for dessert settings for each month of the year. All feature table sculpture arranged on mirror glass plateaux. In this dessert for May, a putto is crowning the figure of Primavera with a floral garland under a baldacchino, while other more local Neapolitan deities adorn the flanks of the surtout. Ivan Day will explore the evolution of these table centrepieces and the culture of the European surtout de table from the 1690s to the Empire.

Image: Design for a Dessert for the Month of May (detail). From Vincenzo Corrado, Il Credenziere di Buon Gusto. (Napoli: 1778).

Dr. Katharina Hantschmann

Nature is considered the best teacher. However, in the porcelain manufactories, modelers and porcelain painters often used prints as inspiration and models for their figure creations or decorations. This applies not only to figurative scenes, such as those after Watteau, but also to landscapes and flower painting. Even in the bests manufactories such as Meissen or the Strasbourg faience manufactory, particularly impressive compositions were created with the help of graphics. One of the most beautiful flower services is the Munich court service created in the Nymphenburg manufactory with its bold flower painting and sculpturally designed flower vases. Its creator was Joseph Zächenberger (1732-1802), whose virtuosity was not limited to flowers. After leaving Nymphenburg in 1770, he created a sophisticated wine arbor in naturalistic paintings on silk. On the basis of newly discovered figurative scenes signed by him, the attributions within Nymphenburg painting need to be reconsidered.

Image: Dish from the Munich Courtservice painted by Joseph Zächenberger (1732–1802) Porcelain factory Nymphenburg, 1765 ca. Inv. Nr. 63/45

J.V.G Mallet F.R.S.A and F.S.A. & Dr. Elisa P. Sani 

The Italian maiolica at Waddesdon was collected by Alice de Rothschild in the early 20th century to replace objects bequeathed by her brother Ferdinand to the British Museum as the Waddesdon Bequest. The lecture represents work in progress by the speakers on the catalogue of this collection. Elisa Sani will concentrate on wares representing women including Deruta display dishes, a trencher from a childbirth set and an unusual dish with fourteen girls. John Mallet will discuss problems concerning two pieces based on major works of art which at the time had not been engraved: the first a dish probably made at Forlì about 1525-30 after figures from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling; the second an Urbino plaque by the Painter of the Coalmine Service with the Holy Family after Raphael

Image: Venus, Anchises and the infant Aeneas, Italian maiolica dish, probably made in Forli’, about 1525-30. Waddesdon (National Trust). Image credit: Mike Fear / Waddesdon Image Library

Sir Jonathan Marsden

This talk will explore the themes of originality, emulation and imitation in sculpture, presenting some findings from new research undertaken during work on the forthcoming catalogue of European Sculpture in the Royal Collection, At the centre of the talk are Camillo Rusconi’s life-size marble groups representing the Four Seasons, created for a Roman palace in the 1690s but acquired only 30 years later for the apartments newly created for George I by William Kent at Kensington Palace. The four compositions invented by Rusconi were remarkably influential, and we can follow their migration through drawings, engravings, porcelain, painting and plasterwork in Italy, France, Britain and Ireland.

Image: Camillo Rusconi (1658-1728), Spring, marble, 74.3 cm high, c. 1695 (Kensington Palace; The Royal Collection © 2024 His Majesty King Charles III) © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024 | Royal Collection Trust

Roger Massey

In 1975 the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge held an exhibition that was playfully entitled Plagiarism Personified. The curator, Julia Poole, demonstrated the nature and extent of copying in English and continental pottery and porcelain figures. The purpose of this lecture is to re-examine the concept of originality in 18th century English ceramic figures. We shall consider the many different design sources used by the English potters and porcelain makers. Although there is evidence of direct copying in the design of many of the figures, we should not overlook the many examples of skill, originality and ingenuity.

Image: Figure of a shepherdess modelled by Jean-Jacques Spängler after a painting by Francis Wheatley c.1787, Derby porcelain. Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum 

Professor Stacey Pierson

Imitating the designs, forms and marks of earlier porcelains has a long history in Chinese imperial ceramic production. From blue and white porcelains with the reign mark of an earlier emperor to monochromes with imitation Song stoneware glazes, this design practice encompasses a wide range of ceramic styles, colours and patterns. Using representative examples from the Yuan to Qing periods (14th-19th centuries), this lecture will introduce the history of this practice and consider the function and purpose of such ‘archaistic’ ceramics in court porcelain culture.

Image: Porcelain wine cup with imitation Song dynasty Guan ware glaze, Ming dynasty, Chenghua mark and period (1465-87), Percival David Collection, British Museum, PDF A57. ©SOAS all rights reserved

Justin Raccanello

The Manifattura di Maioliche Artistiche, Figli di Giuseppe Cantagalli has always been renowned as a factory devoted to making imitations of the fifteenth and sixteenth century ceramics which had become hugely sought after by museums and collectors alike in the second half of the nineteenth century. Little attention has been paid to the production, on a lesser scale, of objects in a contemporary style which were also a constant feature of the factory.

After the death of Ulisse Cantagalli in 1901, the factory was left in the very capable hands of his widow, Margaret and his artistically inclined daughter, Flavia. Through her mother’s close friendship with the writer and feminist Violet Paget (Vernon Lee), Flavia may have met Oscar Wilde during his stay in Florence in 1894 and she was one of the younger members of Paget’s circle which included Gabriele D’Annunzio, John Temple Leader, Bernard Berenson, the painters Telemaco Signorini and John Singer Sargent as well as her father’s friends the collectors Stibbert and Herbert Percy Horne.

There are very few written records mentioning the activity of Margaret and Flavia Cantagalli between the year 1901and 1914, but their continuing involvement in various exhibitions, documented in photographs and catalogues of the time, shows the enduring modernity of their designs. This brief talk will attempt to illustrate some of their first attempts to engage with the new Stile Liberty or Art Nouveau in the years 1900-1910.

Image: Tin-glazed two handled vase with two peacocks facing each other with plumage reaching to the base, on a background of peacock feathers. Maioliche Artistiche Cantagalli, 1901-2. Height 28 cm. Mark: Blue cockerel, painter’s mark 9.

Linda Roth

Taxile Doat (1851–1938) was an exceptional ceramic artist and teacher, who harnessed the magic of the kiln to make brilliant works of art. Rooted in European and Asian traditions, his ceramics bridged traditionalism and innovation, as well as manufacturing and studio pottery. This talk will explore how Doat moved freely between imitation and innovation in his work for the National Manufactory at Sèvres (1877–1905) and his private studio production of high-fired porcelain and stoneware. At Sèvres, he specialized in pâte-sur-pâte decoration in the tradition of Marc-Louis-Emanuel Solon. He brought pâte-sur-pâte to his studio work, but devised time-saving techniques to create this normally laborious decoration and combined it in unique ways with grand-feu glazes inspired by Asian ceramics.

Image: “Corn” Vase, 1906, Taxile Doat (1851–1938), Sèvres, France, Hard-paste porcelain, 9 ½ x 5 x 3/12 in (24 x 13 x 9cm), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, 2024.17.1, Image courtesy Rago/Wright

Dr Timothy Schroder DLITT, FSA

The title of this lecture is figurative rather than literal. For it is not so much about what an object is made of as about whether it is what it appears to be. Although delving into the murky world of fakes, it argues that the issues are often less clear cut than might appear, especially when the intentions of both maker and patron and taken into account. While some of the works we will be considering were demonstrably made to deceive, others, long considered fakes, can now be shown through archival evidence to have been commissioned as honest copies and should not be considered fakes at all. But the fact that some objects can be exonerated in this way should give us pause for thought before condemning others where we lack evidence either way.

Image:Cup and cover, silver-gilt and rock crystal, Lucerne, 1913, Bossard workshop, after a cup belonging to St Peter’s church, Yateley (Schweizerisches Nationalmuseum)

Dr Heike Zech FSA

In 1740, Frederick II of Prussia imposed a ban on all imports of Paris objets de vertu into his territory, while simultaneously supporting Berlin makers through lavish commissions. Local goldsmiths developed their own distinct style, yet adopted marks similar to those used to guarantee the famous ‘touch of Paris’ on gold objects made in the French capital. Similarly, Swiss and Hanau gold box makers drew inspiration from Paris marks and designs. Their works continue to challenge, intrigue (and at times frustrate) specialists across all areas of the art world in equal measure. This survey reflects on research undertaken by leading experts over the last decades. It also asks how we can continue to develop our understanding of these marks in order to better appreciate the distinct qualities and cultural significance of the treasures they appear on.

Image: Gold box with Hanau marks for Les Frères Toussaint, c. 1780; Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, inv. no. HG13559, given by M. Schleyer, 2022 (photograph: B. Guggenmoos/S. Hänisch)