The Trust welcomed Monika to its Highgate house in September 2023.

If you ask me what is the greatest advantage of being on a scholarship of the Robert Anderson Trust, I would say opportunities. Opportunity to see with your own eyes archaeological objects that you saw only in books before. Opportunity to see archives concerning events that determined history. Opportunity to meet specialists from your discipline. And most importantly, the opportunity to focus only on your research.

In the cast courts at the V&A

I am very grateful to the Robert Anderson Trust for enabling me to carry out my PhD research in London. During my stay, I was able to use the resources of the British Library, the Library of The Warburg Institute and the National Art Library. Not without significance also was the access to archives as well as archival photographs, e.g. in the British Museum Archives where I was able to study documents related to the Elgin Marbles or in the British Library where the vast collection of manuscripts of eighteenth-century archaeologists is located. And I assure you that (for an archaeologist) holding Elgin’s letters in your own hands is very impressive. Getting to know these documents was crucial for my work and allowed me to understand the beginnings of archaeology as a scientific discipline.

During my research, I was able to study the excellent collections of plaster casts, which are the main topic of my thesis, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Sir John Soane’s Museum, as well as the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The month’s stay in London enabled me to see the most important masterpieces of ancient art which were the prototypes of the plaster casts. I was also able to meet with Dr Valentina Risdonne, the Conservation Scientist at the Victoria and Albert Museum, who told me more about materials and methods for making nineteenth-century plaster casts from the V&A collection and showed me the V&A laboratories.

It was a privilege to be granted a scholarship by The Robert Anderson Trust. I am very thankful for the opportunity, which will definitely impact the quality of my PhD project. I cannot miss the chance to express my deep gratitude to Mr Howard Davies. His help and support made everything easier and more pleasant.