Enfilade

Gold Box with Hanau marks for Les Frères Toussaint, ca. 1780
(Nuremberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, HG13559)

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This year’s Haughton International Seminar:

Treasures: Creation, Emulation, and Imitation

The British Academy, 11 Carlton House Terrace, London, 25–26 June 2025

Each year the Haughton International Seminar draws together a group of eminent international speakers to share their knowledge and passion with an appreciative audience. This year’s seminar, Treasures: Creation, Emulation, and Imitation—dedicated to the memory of Dame Rosalind Savill—will take place in London at The British Academy on Wednesday, 25th and Thursday, 26th June.

From the earliest cave painters to the stars of today, artists have balanced invention with imitation. Imitation looks to nature—the human form or the shape of a flower—but artists also imitate each other. In some cases imitation is loose and a point of departure; in others it is exact but made as honest copies; and in yet others it is done to impersonate and to deceive. Addressing a wide range of media—including the 18th-century ‘Porcelain Fever’ of Augustus the Strong, the 19th-century Arts & Crafts movement, royal sculptural collections, gold boxes, and more—the seminar will explore the extent to which the works were creations, emulations, or imitations. More information about the 2025 seminar, along with previous years’ offerings, can be found at the event website, where one can also purchase tickets. Booking in advance is essential due to limited numbers.

p r e s e n t a t i o n s

• Adriano Aymonino — Media Transfer: Creating, Emulating, and Imitating the Antique in Early Modern Europe

• Emerson Bowyer — Canova: Sketching in Clay

• Tobias Capwell — The Helmschmids of Augsburg: German Renaissance Masters of the Art of Armour

• Angela Caròla-Perrotti — Del Vecchio, Giustiniani, Mollica, or Colonnese? A Preliminary Approach to Differentiating Vases ‘all’Etrusca’ Produced in Naples between 1800 and 1850

• Ivan Day — The Surtout de Table: From Trionfi da Tavola to Gilt Bronze

• Katharina Hantschmann — The Best Teachers: Role Models for Porcelain Production and a Virtuoso in Nymphenburg

• J. V. G Mallet and Elisa Sani — Italian Maiolica in the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor

• Jonathan Marsden — Changing Seasons: Sculptural Metamorphoses from the Royal Collection

• Roger Massey — Ingenuity and Plagiarism: The Concept of Originality in 18th-Century English Pottery and Porcelain Figures

• Stacey Pierson — Archaism as Imitation: Recreating the Past in Chinese Porcelain

• Justin Raccanello — From Imitation to Modernity: Margaret and Flavia Cantagalli and the Art Nouveau

• Linda Roth — Ceramicist Taxile Doat (1851–1938): Imitation to Innovation

• Timothy Schroder — All the Glitters is Not Gold: Perception and Deception in the World of Goldsmithery

• Heike Zech — Made in Paris? So-called poinçons de prestige on 18th-Century Goldboxes