Roberto Paolini, a ceramic artist from Cerveteri, specializes in meticulously crafted reproductions of ancient Greek and Etruscan painted pottery for museums, collectors, and the tourist market. In conversation with Delphine Tonglet, assistant curator in the Department of Greek and Roman Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Caspar Meyer, professor at Bard Graduate Center, Paolini will discuss the materials, techniques, and embodied knowledge involved in his practice. Their conversation will explore how remaking ancient objects can illuminate the creative choices and social worlds of ancient craftspeople as much as it raises contemporary questions about authenticity, collecting, cultural heritage, and the role of reproductions in museums.

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Roberto Paolini creates work under the name Pithos. At the age of twelve, he began frequenting the workshop of an elderly craftsman who had specialized for years in the creation of ancient ceramics. With great tenacity and enthusiasm, he has spent years experimenting and studying the methods that ancient Etruscan and Greek artisans used to create their works. He has engaged in various collaborations with Italian and international museums and universities in the field of experimental archaeology. He has made reproductions for the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, the National Archeological Museum of Ferrara, and many others for exhibition and educational purposes. In 2023 Paolini collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to craft a replica of the famous Euphronios krater, which is housed there today.

Delphine Tonglet is a Belgian art historian and archaeologist who specializes in the study of ancient Greece and Etruria. She received her MA (2009) and PhD (2014) degrees from the Université libre de Bruxelles and has developed an international career through her participation to archaeological ―mostly at Itanos in Crete and in Tuscany and Lazio in Italy― excavations and thanks to numerous research stays and scholarships at the University of Pisa, the Academia Belgica in Rome, the University of Bologna, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Andrew W. Mellon Senior Fellowship, 2015–16). Her favorite research themes deal with intercultural exchanges between Etruria, the Greeks, and other Mediterranean actors, through the study of material culture.

Caspar Meyer is Professor of Classical Archaeology and Material Culture at the Bard Graduate Center in New York. His research focuses on the cultural dynamics of craft production in the Greek city states of the Aegean and among the mobile pastoralists of Eurasia. Another area of his interest is the history of the instruments and media which archaeologists have developed to aid the transformation of artifacts into written explanations. He previously taught at Birkbeck College, University of London, and held research fellowships at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and the Centre Louis Gernet in Paris. He is the editor of West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture.

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Object Labs

At Bard Graduate Center, we use an object-centered approach to advance the study of the decorative arts, design history, and material culture. Join our student educators before select Fall 2026 public events to learn about some of the objects in BGC’s Study Collection. Each week we will showcase three objects carefully selected from the collection, which includes more than five thousand objects in a variety of media. Drop in anytime between 5 and 6 pm; the experience takes roughly ten minutes.

October 7, 14, and 21
November 4, 11, and 18

38 West 86th Street, New York
5–6 pm

Founded in 2011, the BGC Study Collection supports student research by providing opportunities for hands-on close examination of objects. Learn more about the BGC Study Collection here.