J. Paul Getty Museum

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This article is dedicated to the archive of the American artist Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), stored since 2011 at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Riding on the tails of renewed current debate, this study turns its attention to the management of an archival source, opening the way not only to a reconsideration of the artist’s oeuvre but also to a better consideration of its place in the history of photography. Mainly known for his runs of silver monochromes, Mapplethorpe produced an eclectic oeuvre that covered the full spectrum and range of methods associated with the medium. As a result, looking at the numerous one-off pieces he completed using alternative methods, what is striking is the possibility of presenting his practice as a dedicated commitment to the creation of images. Reworked, masked, staged, the photographs used in the first part of his career speak to us of a constrained experience, echoing the censorship and emotions the artist had associated with the medium since his teenage years.

There are many ways to protect cultural heritage as a valuable commodity. Although heightened security measures and extensive surveillance methods can deter theft, a more effective means for reducing theft is the elimination of the demand for black market art items. Trade in unprovenanced antiquities is a demand-driven crime; the market for illegal or undocumented items is driven by buyers’ wants. The most effective method of protection for cultural heritage is to eliminate the demand for black market for these precious objects, thereby reducing the market, a method known as the “market reduction approach.” There is a well-documented link between the demand for items without provenance and museums. To eliminate black market demand, legislation is necessary to prosecute and regulate buyers, such as museums.

Diverse sono le denominazioni attribuite al bronzo originale di Lisippo recuperato in Adriati-co presso Fano nel 1964: The Getty Bronze, l'atleta di Fano, o ancora The Victorious Youth; il presente contributo analizza in profondità iconografia e iconologia dell'opera, considerando-la un'allegoria agonistica. Sebbene la gestualità del giovane sia ben documentata già a partire dallo stile severo, l'iconografia del vincitore si stabilizza solo con il Callicrate di Lisippo. Nel-la più tarda figura dell' Agia si palesa già la ricerca di dinamicità caratteristica del giovane di Fano, il quale assume pure l'attitudine dell'Eracle vittorioso di Corinto, opera da situarsi tra l' Agia e l' Agone. Quest'ultimo gode di ininterrotta attualità attraverso ellenismo e arte roma-na, tanto da dover ritenere che la statua abbia raggiunto l'Italia e non sia andata perduta an-zitempo nelle acque dell' Adriatico, come alcuni credono. La grande eco suscitata nei più diver-si generi dell'arte romana e in diverse aree del dominio imperiale perora invece l'arrivo del-l' Agone nell'Urbe, giunto a far parte del grande addensamento di originali lisippei già presen-ti. Valorizzando la latitudine del rinvenimento in Adriatico alla luce dell'attuale conoscenza della rete stradale dell'impero, l'autore considera l'inabissamento una conferma della preceden-te traslazione in Italia dell' Agone che avrebbe lasciato Roma per via di terra al tempo di Co-stantino con imbarco a Fano o ad Ancona, destinato a Bisanzio. Il gesto del giovane e l'alle-goria che se ne sprigiona sopravviveranno nei secoli e verranno comprese anche da Michelan-gelo, capace di far rivivere figurativamente l'originale giudizio agonistico ellenico nella Sistina.

Per il ventennale della morte di Federico Zeri la Fondazione che porta il suo nome e il Dipartimento delle Arti dell'Università di Bologna hanno deciso di ricordare il grande storico dell'arte con un ciclo di tre incontri svoltosi in Fondazione Zeri.

Articolo figurante all'interno del IX numero della rivista Archeomafie. Lo studio, sintesi della tesi del Master Archeologia giudiziaria e crimini contro il patrimonio, si propone di analizzare il fenomeno dei crimini contro il patrimonio archeologico all'interno dei confini della regione Marche.

The J. Paul Getty Research Institute’s Library in Los Angeles hides a curious manuscript entitled 'Angelorum et daemonum nomina et attributa passim in divinis scripturis contenta ad patrum sententiam explicata ad illustrissimum et reverendissimum Iulium Antonium Sanctorium cardinalem Sanctae Severinae amplissimum et de ecclesiastica hierarchia' (MS 86-A866). The manuscript is an encyclopaedic work on angelology, accompanied by a treatise on
the parallel of the angelic and ecclesiastical hierarchies, dedicated to cardinal Giulio Antonio Santori (1532-1602). The author signed it as Vincentius Ciconia, translated by Onica Busuioceanu, late librarian of the Getty Research Institute, as ‘Vincenzo Cicogna’. The author, who introduces himself as «old and decrepit» in the dedication, is identified as a Venetian ecclesiastical scholar by the GRI catalogue, also author of a commentary on the Psalms. On the basis of this information, the mysterious angelologist is identifiable as Vincenzo Cicogna, the first ecclesiastical member of an Early Modern Veronese painter dynasty.

By Leila Moayeri Pazargadi and Frances Terpak.
"The focus of this essay is a photograph album that Colonel Luigi Pesce created and gave, in 1860, to the British consul in Tehran, Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson. The album's 42 photographs represent some of the first-ever taken of Nasīr al-Din Shah's court; the city gates, mosques, and vicinity of Tehran; and the ruins and reliefs of Persepolis, Naqsh-e Rostam, and Tāq-e Bāstān. Sent to Persia to secure a British presence as part of the Great Game, Rawlinson played a key role in the strategic rivalry between the British and Russian Empires, which were vying for supremacy in central Asia. Rawlinson was not only an accomplished military officer and diplomat, he was also an exceptional linguist who has been described as the father of Assyriology because his translations of the Behistūn inscription enabled a collective scholarly deciphering of cuneiform. As a visual artifact with a historically precise provenance and a known maker and recipient, the Rawlinson album helps to frame the early history of photography in Persia and provides insight into how images contributed to imperial agendas and nation building."

In 1994, the J.Paul Getty museum purchased 7 illuminated manuscript pages to be part of their prestigious manuscript collection. On June 1st, 2010, a lawsuit was filed against the J. Paul Getty Museum, requesting the return of seven Holy illuminated bible pages back to the Armenian church, along with a $105 million compensation. The artifacts in question, the Zeyt'un Gospel's canon tables are claimed to have been stolen in the immediate aftermath of the Armenian Genocide.

The paper presents the main issues at stake with the emergence of looted art, such as questions of provenance and responsibility in relation to mass atrocities. It was written under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Mackenzie (Acting Chair, Department of Art History, Concordia University), as part of a graduate seminar at Concordia University, entitled "Collecting and Patronage in Canada".

... 18 Soltykoff preferred his objectsto have a 'complete' look; see Brennan, op ... This trans adantic link is not without irony, giventhe fact that Consuelo's tastes were shaped bythose of her mother,Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt, whose 'Gothic Room' at Marble House, Newport, Rhode ...

Our study is devoted to one of the manuscripts illustrated by Mesrop in 1615, which has had a very cruel fate. Today this manuscript is in the collection of  J.P. Getty Museum in Los Angeles under the number 83.MB.71 , also called Ms. "Ludwig II 7" (Fig. 1), because the manuscript was owned by Peter Ludwig before becoming the part of Getty Museum’s collection . This manuscript, ordered by Martiros in 1615, was owned by his family until 1737, after which it appeared in a private collection in Isfahan. In 1897 the manuscript was acquired by a well-known art collector and archaeologist, Jean-Jacques Marie de Morgan, who was  the director of antiquities of Egypt at the time and organized archaeological excavations in Persepolis as well as in a number of important sites in Persia. The subsequent fate of this manuscript remains unknown for more than 30 years after Morgan's death, until the manuscript, or more precisely, what remains of it, appears in the collection of French diplomat Jean Felix Pozzi. During the years when Morgan had the manuscript in 1913 it has been thoroughly studied and published by Frederick Macler , whose work gives us access to black-and-white photographs of all the miniatures and an idea of what the manuscript looked like before it was fragmented and appeared in Pozzi's collection. According to Macler, the Gospel had 275 pages. It began with 16 miniatures in succession, which included the Annunciation, the Nativity of Christ, Descent into Limbo, Women at the Lord's Tomb, Transfiguration, Presentation to the Temple, Baptism, Resurrection of Lazarus, Entry to Jerusalem, Washing of the Feet, The Arrest of Christ, Crucifixion, Ascension, Pentecost, Christ in Glory, and the Last Judgment. The manuscript also had portraits of 4 Evangelists with their title pages, the letters of Eusebius and Carpianus, and 8 canon tables, which resulted in total of 34 miniatures.
In 1971, when J.F. Pozzi sells the remainder of his manuscript at the Drouot auction house in Paris, it already had only 246 pages, 18 of which were miniatures that included the 4 Evangelists with their title pages, the letters of Eusebius and Carpianus, and 8 canon tables. 
It is in this form that the manuscript was bought by Hans Peter Kraus in 1974, who sold it in 1976 to German collector Peter Ludwig.  In 1983 the manuscript passes from Ludwig collection to the Getty Museum.

The authenticity of a cabinet in the J. Paul Getty Museum collection that was said to be a 16th-century Burgundian piece came under doubt in the late 20th century due to its excellent state of preservation and uniform patina, and it was relabeled a 19th-century forgery. In 2001, at the time of an exhibit of the work of Hugues Sambin at the Musée National de la Renaissance (Ecouen, France), the Getty piece was compared favorably to a Sambin cabinet with an unbroken provenance. This led to a serious reinvestigation of the Getty piece, in which both physical and documentary evidence were studied. All evidence suggested that the cabinet was an authentic piece with a replacement base and a new finish. The authors discuss the results of the investigation focusing on the structure and construction of the cabinet and replacement parts and finishes. Dendrochronological analysis and radiocarbon dating were among the analytical techniques used to study the cabinet.

"The Petrified" is an episodic work that begins with this fictional event in the summer of 2009, telling stories of the people who turned to stone over the ensuing ten years, and how museums adapted to their presence. Mixing literary reportage, watercolor, and other media, it draws on recent events and debates pertaining to cultural restitution and repatriation; the private financing of museums; and the politics of collecting and conserving.

Neben die Besucher der realen Museumsorte sind in zunehmenden Maße die Benutzer der virtuellen Museumswelten getreten. Social Media trägt wesentlich dazu bei, dass sich das Online-Angebot an Infotainment stark vom hypermedialem Edutainment unterscheidet, welches am realen Museums-Standort angeboten
wird. Der Hype des Web 2.0 ist in amerikanischen Museen längst vorüber, die Social Media Networking Plattformen bestens etabliert, so dass nun ein Rückblick möglich wird. „Auch traditionelle Institutionen, die sich gegenüber Netzwerken
nicht ‚öff nen‘ wollen oder können, sollten die strategischen Implikationen sozialer Medien genaustens kennen“, denn gemäß durchgeführter Studien warten die meisten der deutschsprachigen Museen und Kulturinstitutionen derzeit noch ein wenig ab (Kaul, 2010: 6; vgl. Bieber, Kraemer, Lill, Schweibenz 2009).
Im Folgenden sollen an der Webpräsenz einiger amerikanischer Museen verschiedene Anwendungsbereiche der Web 2.0 Technologien vorgestellt und bestimmte Merkmale als charakteristische und individuelle Strategien herausgearbeitet werden. Als Fallstudien dienen die Webseiten des, des Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, des Getty, des San Francisco Museum of Modern Art und das Online-Projekt Th e American Image – The Photographs of John Collier des Maxwell
Museum of Anthropology und des College of Education’s Technology & Education Center der University of New Mexico. Amerikanische Museen wurden deshalb ausgewählt, da diese oft mals experimentierfreudiger im Umgang mit neuen Technologien sind, somit frühzeitiger Social Media anwandten und sich aufgrund
der bisherigen Erfahrungen daher besser als Untersuchungsmaterial eignen (vgl. Din, Hecht 2007; Tallon, Walker 2008). Darin unterscheiden sie sich – von wenigen
Ausnahmen abgesehen – grundlegend von Webseiten deutschsprachiger Museen. Das oftmals finanziell begründete Zögern der Verantwortlichen hierzulande hat aber auch seine Vorteile, denn so lassen sich Irrwege und Sackgassen der Kommunikationstechnologien besser vermeiden.

During 2006 three major North American Museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, agreed to return a significant number of antiquities to Italy. Acquisition information relating to the return of 26 items to Italy and 4 to Greece from the Getty can be added to the details known from the objects returned from Boston. A more detailed picture is emerging of how antiquities, apparently looted from Italy, were being passed through Switzerland on their way to dealers in Europe and North America. This information also points toward other antiquities that may be included in future agreements.

[Paper published in 2018 in the Journal for Art Market Studies]

"Based on the Mapplethorpe archive which has been accessible at the Getty Research Institute since 2013, the Jonathan Maho offers a new perspective on the development of the artist's oeuvre, his perception by the public, and his marketing. It becomes clear that Mapplethorpe’s career was founded on a selective biography of his oeuvre, where the popular and saleable still lifes and portrait photographs secured his reputation and market success, while his sexually explicit images were withheld from the public by gallerists wary of criticism in the 1960s and 1970s. A preference initially demanded by the gallerist subsequently became an integral part of the artist’s own strategy. It was not until the 1980s that the by then established artist could present this hitherto hidden complex of work relatively freely, and publicize it under the “censorship” label. However, the long-pursued​ separation of different work groups has had a lasting effect on the reception of Mapplethorpe’s oeuvre to this day."