About this Event
This conference marks the publication of the new, expanded edition of Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny’s seminal Taste and the Antique (3 vols, Harvey Miller/Brepols, 2024).
The original edition was a landmark study that established a canonical list of ninety-five ancient sculptures that were widely admired, collected, and copied between c. 1500 and 1900. It traced how these works—from the Apollo Belvedere to the Laocoön —shaped artistic taste, collecting practices, and artistic discourse by defining a classical aesthetic and pedagogy. As one of the most influential texts in the history of art history, Taste and the Antique has profoundly shaped scholarship and curatorial practice on the reception of ancient sculpture.
The revised three-volume edition of 2024 substantially updates the original text with recent research. It broadens the discussion of the reception of the classical canon, incorporates decades of intervening scholarship, and brings the conversation into the realm of contemporary art, opening new perspectives on the afterlives of Greek and Roman sculpture.
Taking the new edition as a point of departure, the conference assesses the state of the field, explores emerging methodologies, and considers future directions.
Sessions will address how classical statues shaped visual culture beyond replication, including:
- SHAPING AND TRANSMITTING THE CANON: Examining the establishment, radical alteration, and dissolution of the sculptural canon in the early modern era.
- THE CANON AND THE BODY IN THE AGE OF EMPIRE: Exploring the role of classical statuary in the conception of "proportionate" and "disproportionate" bodies, in the representation of non-European populations, and in colonial educational and social policies.
- RESTORATION AND DISPLAY: Considering reconfigurations of the antique and notions of authenticity; situating the antique within modern museum contexts.
- CHANGING AND RETHINKING CANONS: Rethinking the antique within modern and postmodern theoretical frameworks and practices.
A core aim of this event is to foster dialogue across generations, traditions, and methodologies of scholarship.
Organised by Adriano Aymonino (University of Buckingham) & Kathleen Christian (Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance, Humboldt University of Berlin)
Supported by Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Center for Palladian Studies in America; Trinity Fine Art; Istituto Italiano di Cultura
DAY 1 - Wednesday,10 Dec
🕑: 06:00 PM
Doors Open
Info: Institute of Classical Studies – Senate House – Beveridge Hall
🕑: 06:20 PM - 06:30 PM
Introducing the Keynote Speaker
Host: Katherine Harloe (Institute of Classical Studies)
Info: Katherine Harloe , Director, Institute of Classical Studies, will be introducing the keynote speaker, Salvatore Settis, Accademico dei Lincei
🕑: 06:30 PM - 07:30 PM
Keynote paper: Only Connect: Dionysus and Christ
Host: Salvatore Settis (Accademico dei Lincei)
DAY 2 - Thursday, 11 Dec
🕑: 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Registration
Info: Institute of Classical Studies – Senate House – Beveridge Hall
🕑: 10:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Welcome and Introduction
Host: Adriano Aymonino (The University of Buckingham)
SESSION 1: SHAPING AND TRANSMITTING THE CANON (10:45AM - 12:00PM)
Host: Katherine Harloe (Institute of Classical Studies)
Info: This session will be chaired by Katherine Harloe, Director, Institute of Classical Studies
🕑: 10:45 AM - 11:05 AM
An Antiquity of Plants and Animals? Towards a Non-Human Canon
Host: Katharina Bedenbender (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
🕑: 11:05 AM - 11:25 AM
Piranesi and the Classical Body
Host: Clare Hornsby(British School at Rome)
🕑: 11:25 AM - 11:45 AM
Art, Historiography & Connoisseurship:The Specimens of Antient Sculpture(1809)
Host: Vivien Bird (The University of Buckingham)
🕑: 11:45 AM - 12:00 PM
Discussion
🕑: 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM
LUNCH BREAK
Info: Lunch provided for speakers only.
SESSION 2: THE CANON AND THE BODY IN THE AGE OF EMPIRE (2:00PM - 3.35PM)
Host: Caroline Vout (University of Cambridge)
Info: This session will be chaired by Caroline Vout, Professor of Classics - Director of the Museum of Classical Archaeology, University of Cambridge
🕑: 02:00 PM - 02:20 PM
Living Antiquities?
Host: Annette Kranen (Universität Bern)
Info: Living Antiquities? Anthropological/Travel Imagery and the Sculptural Canon in the Late Eighteenth Century
🕑: 02:20 PM - 02:40 PM
The Bodies of Gods: Drawing from the Antique in Colonial India
Host: Eva Ehninger (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
🕑: 02:40 PM - 03:00 PM
A Black Apollo? John Quincy Adams Ward’s The Freedman and the Belvedere Torso
Host: Anna Degler (Freie Universität Berlin)
🕑: 03:00 PM - 03:20 PM
Between Plaster and Stone: Reframing the Classical Canon in Bourbon New Spain
Host: Rebecca Yuste (Columbia University)
🕑: 03:20 PM - 03:35 PM
Discussion
🕑: 03:35 PM - 04:05 PM
TEA/COFFEE BREAK
Info: Tea/Coffee available for all attendees.
🕑: 04:05 PM - 04:25 PM
Introducing the Updated Census
Host: Kathleen Christian(Census-Humboldt University of Berlin)
🕑: 04:25 PM - 04:45 PM
Introducing the New Edition of Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique
Host: Adriano Aymonino (University of Buckingham)
🕑: 04:45 PM - 05:00 PM
Discussion
🕑: 05:00 PM - 05:10 PM
Introducing the Keynote Speaker
Host: Bill Sherman (Warburg Institute)
Info: Bill Sherman , the Director of Warburg Institute will be introducing the keynote speaker, Nicholas Penny
🕑: 05:10 PM - 06:30 PM
Keynote paper: The Invention of the Classical
Host: Nicholas Penny
Info: Former Director of the National Gallery, London
DAY 3 - Friday, 12 Dec
🕑: 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Registration
Info: Warburg Institute – Auditorium
🕑: 10:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Welcome and Introduction
Host: Adriano Aymonino (The University of Buckingham)
SESSION 3: RESTORATION AND DISPLAY (10:45AM -1:30PM)
Host: Chiara Piva (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Info: This session will be chaired by Chiara Piva, Associate Professor at Sapienza University of Rome
🕑: 10:45 AM - 11:05 AM
Zooming In: The Social Lives of Statues
Host: Jeffrey Collins (Bard Graduate Center)
🕑: 11:05 AM - 11:25 AM
Zooming Out: Restoration as Taste
Host: Elizabeth Bartman
Info: Former President of the Archaeological Institute of America
🕑: 11:25 AM - 11:45 AM
Restoration
Host: Astrid Fendt (Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart)
Info: Restoration, De- and Re-restoration of Ancient Sculptures in the Munich Glyptothek, Nineteenth to Twenty-First Century
🕑: 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM
TEA/COFFEE BREAK
Info: Tea/Coffee available for all attendees.
🕑: 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM
The Braccio Nuovo in the Vatican Museums
Host: Eleonora Ferrazza (Vatican Museums)
Info: The Braccio Nuovo in the Vatican Museums: Display and Restorations of the Antique in the Nineteenth Century
🕑: 12:45 PM - 01:15 PM
Revealing Restorations
Host: Lisa Ayla Çakmak (Art Institute of Chicago)
Info: Revealing Restorations: Assessing the Presentation and Reception of Restored Roman Sculptures from the Torlonia Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago
🕑: 01:15 PM - 01:30 PM
Discussion
🕑: 01:30 PM - 03:00 PM
LUNCH BREAK
Info: Lunch provided for speakers only.
SESSION 4: CHANGING AND RETHINKING CANONS (3:00PM - 4:15PM)
Host: Flora Dennis (Warburg Institute)
Info: This session will be chaired by Flora Dennis, Deputy Director of the Warburg Institute
🕑: 03:00 PM - 03:20 PM
The Head of an Etruscan
Host: Joanna Fiduccia (Yale University)
Info: The Head of an Etruscan: Alternative Antiquities and the Physiognomies of Modern Sculpture
🕑: 03:20 PM - 03:40 PM
The Fragmented Marble Body
Host: Domiziana Serrano(Université Jean Monnet -Saint-Étienne)
Info: The Fragmented Marble Body: Surrealism, Political Phantoms, and the Canon Recast
🕑: 03:40 PM - 04:00 PM
From the Cortile to the Cosmos
Host: Tilman Schreiber (Friedrich Schiller University Jena)
Info: From the Cortile to the Cosmos: Interpreting the Sculptural Canon in the Context of US Space Travel
🕑: 04:00 PM - 04:15 PM
Discussion
🕑: 04:15 PM - 04:45 PM
TEA/COFFEE BREAK
Info: Tea/Coffee available for all attendees.
CLOSING PAPER: HISTORIOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES ON THE CANON
🕑: 04:45 PM - 05:05 PM
Fear Revealed
Host: Mateusz Kapustka (Freie Universität Berlin – Zurich)
Info: Fear Revealed: Jacob Burckhardt on Classical Anthropomorphism and Demonic Hybridity
🕑: 05:05 PM - 05:15 PM
Final Remarks
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Institute of Classical Studies, Senate House, London, United Kingdom
GBP 10.00 to GBP 30.00
