She received her in B.A. in Art History from McGill University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Delaware. Her dissertation, “Art, Commerce, and Scholarship in the Age of Enlightenment: Pierre-Jean Mariette and the Making of Art History,” was the winner of the Council of Graduate Schools/UMI Distinguished Dissertation Award in the Humanities and Fine Arts in 2009. Dr. Smentek has lectured and published on eighteenth-century painting, porcelain, and the graphic arts, including the forthcoming article, “Paradoxes of Print: Originality, Authenticity, and the Graphic Arts in Eighteenth-Century Europe.” Additionally, she has curated several exhibitions, including “Rococo Exotic: French Mounted Porcelains and the Allure of the East,” which was held at the Frick Collection in 2007.