Through its depiction of the history of the collection of plaster casts the dissertation emphasises the great tradition of the large European collections of diverse institutions and museums in the gathering of plaster casts of sculpture from Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The regained scholarly interest in and attention to plaster casts at the end of the 20th and in the early 21st century tells of the vigorous contemporary research into their history and value. The thesis also contributes in the national context to the series of collections that have been recently redisplayed and to the enhanced interest in them, the casts being pulled out of the stores, inventoried, catalogued, restored and digitised. The network of European workshops and casters is much ramified and provides evidence of the need for training on the foundations of ancient education. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, numerous schools, universities, institutes, museums and private collections were furnished with casts. At universities they were used during lectures about archaeology and art history, while at art academies they were one of the foundations of the training of artists. From the 19th century, plaster cast collections became ever more numerous and comprehensive; public art museums greatly increasing in number, setting up the standards for all major cities in Europe and beyond. The work places a particular emphasis on the application of plaster casts of particular historical periods since Classical Antiquity. This is particularly important for the reception of Antique casts, where a synopsis presents their evaluation and importance in various periods of European history. In Croatia the initiator of and pioneer in the creation of the Plaster Museum was Izidor Kršnjavi, whose strong personality was an essential element at the end of the 19th century.in the promotion of reforms in education, cultural life and the country’s art, with a centre in Zagreb, This integral overview of the importance of scholarly research into plaster casts in the national context provides the first revaluation of the ample holdings of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Glyptotheque, that is, of its body of Antique and medieval sculpture. The thesis underlines the importance and purpose of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Glyptotheque, the only museum institution in the country that collects plaster casts, in the European context to which it historically belongs.