The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Antiquities Collection

by J. Paul Getty Museum

Book Overview

J. Paul Getty bought his first classical antiquity-a small terracotta sculpture-at auction in London in 1939. Over the next four decades, he became a passionate collector, and in the 1950s he created a trust for "the diffusion of artistic and general knowledge." Building on that early foundation, successive antiquities curators at the Getty Museum have amassed a collection that now contains more than fifty thousand ancient objects. In lively prose...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0892366648
• ISBN13: 9780892366644
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 9.4" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

A great book but...

First of all the physical description of the book. It's slightly too large for a pocket type guide. The pages are glossy with excellent photos. Considering the collection that this work covers however it is way too thin. The selected approximately 200 "important" pieces. I'm not sure how they determined the importance of these pieces as there was no discernable pattern. It was broken up into the age the pieces were from (with a fair smattering from each period) but that appears to be the only categorization. For each piece there is a brief description ranging from a line next to the picture to a page long.Sadly this gives no indication of Mr. Getty's personal tastes and which items he preferred. Otherwise a great book.