Handbook of the Antiquities Collection

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles:
Handbook of the Antiquities Collection





The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has a substantial collection of items from the classical world: Greece, Etruria, and Rome. In 2010 the J. Paul Getty Museum Press published a handbook about this collection.

The museum is named after its founder, J. Paul Getty (1892-1976), who made a fortune in oil. In 1954 he turned his private collection into a public museum. At first it was housed in the Spanish-colonial Ranch House located on his Malibu property. As the collection grew and the museum needed more space, he decided to build a replica of a famous Roman villa – known as Villa dei Papiri - next to the old Ranch House in order to present the ancient items in a proper setting. The Getty Villa opened in 1974. It was closed for renovation from 1997 to 2006.

[Figure 8, page xvi, is a watercolour rendering of the proposed Getty Museum in Malibu painted by Dave Wilkins in 1972.]

The first version of the Handbook of the Antiquities Collection - edited by Marion True - was published in 2002. In the following years new items were added, while others were removed (see more below). To reflect these changes a second version - edited by Kenneth Lapatin and Karol Wight - was published in 2010

The Handbook presents nearly two hundred of the Getty Museum’s most important pieces, including J. Paul Getty’s most prized possession, the life-size marble statue of Hercules, known as the Lansdowne Heracles (figure 4, page xiii, and pp. 160-161).

There is a brief description and a photo of each item. In most cases one item gets one page (the text and the photo are on the same page). In a few cases one item gets less than one page, but in more than fifteen cases one item gets two pages. Sometimes there is more than one photo of a particular item. In other words, there are more than 200 illustrations in this book, and almost all are in colour.

The book opens with a foreword by Michael Brand, Director of the Getty Museum 2005-2010; a brief history of the classical collection by Karol Wight, Senior Curator of Antiquities 2007-2011; some notes to the reader; a chart with the names of nineteen Greek, Etruscan, and Roman divinities; and a map of the classical world.

At the end of the book we have a glossary of technical terms and an index.

The main text is divided into five chapters:

# 1 “Pre-Classical Cultures” - 12 pages

# 2 “The Greek and Eastern Mediterranean Collection” - 88 pages
# 3 “The South Italian Collection” - 18 pages
# 4 “The Etruscan Collection” - 18 pages
# 5 “The Roman Collection” - 84 pages

In the brief history of the classical collection Karol Wight mentions some of the problems which the museum has had to face in recent years:

(1) Two major acquisitions from 1979 were later determined to be modern forgeries (page xix).

(2) A statue of a young man acquired in 1985 - known as the Getty Kouros - is described as the museum’s “most problematic object …, the authenticity of which is still debated” (page xix).

(3) The governments of Italy and Greece demanded that several items in the Getty Museum be returned to them, because they were acquired by improper means. Following lengthy negotiations some items were sent to Italy, while others were sent to Greece (page xxi).

From this account you might get the impression that the people who run this museum are open and honest about their mistakes. But this is not always the case. They are less than candid when talking about their former colleagues:
 

* Jiri Frel (1923-2006) is mentioned on page xvii. We are told that he was hired as curator of the Antiquities Collection in 1973, but we are not told when and how he left the institution; probably because his departure (1984-1986) was surrounded by a professional scandal.

* His successor Marion True (born 1948) is mentioned two times. She is praised by Karol Wight on the last page (Acknowledgments) and by Michael Brand on the first page (Foreword). We are told that she was the curator from 1986 to 2005, but we are not told how and why she left the institution; again, probably because her departure in 2005 was surrounded by a professional scandal.

Thomas Hoving (1931-2009) has written an interesting and entertaing account about Jiri Frel and the controversial Getty Kouros in his memoirs, which are available online: see “Artful Tom: A Memoir” Chapter 31 “The Getty Wars” (2009).

For information about Marion True and the controversy with Italy and Greece see The Medici Conspiracy by Peter Watson & Cecilia Todeschini (2006, 2007) and Chasing Aphrodite by Jason Felch & Ralph Frammolino (2010, 2011).

The Handbook of the Antiquities Collection is a love of labour. It is easy to see that the people behind it paid great attention to every aspect and every detail of this product. The result is a wonderful catalogue of the classical collection in the Getty Museum and at the same time a useful handbook of classical art.

PS # 1. The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (colloquially known as the Met) also has a substantial collection of ancient items. For information about this collection see Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2007).

PS # 2. For a critical account about the Met see Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret Story of the Moguls and the Money That Made the Metropolitan Museum by Michael Gross (2009, 2010).

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 Kenneth Lapatin and Karol Wight, editors,

Handbook of the Antiquities Collection,

J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010, 238 pages

 

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