Recent Acquisitions 2023: Collecting for the J. Paul Getty Museum
Each year the J. Paul Getty Museum adds to its holdings of European art from antiquity to 1900, and of international photography up to the present day.
Selected by the Museum's curators, the works of art in this presentation highlight key acquisitions of 2022-23. These include a magnificent ancient Roman bust; sculptures from Renaissance Italy and 19th-century France; a rare 11th-century German illuminated book; drawings from the 16th to the 19th centuries; 20th-century and contemporary photography; and, most significantly, the extraordinary Portrait of Mai by Joshua Reynolds.
Antiquities: Portrait Bust of Emperor Antoninus Pius
Carved during Antoninus Pius’s long and remarkably peaceful reign (138–161 CE), this superb portrait follows an official image created at the time of the ruler’s accession to power and then widely disseminated across the Roman empire.
The portrait represents the emperor as a military commander, wearing a paludamentum, or “general’s cloak.”
Drawings: Portrait of an Unidentified Black Servant
Rendered in layers of red and black chalk by an unknown dutch artist, a young boy glances to the side.
His cap indicates his service at the Dutch royal court, where he was either a freed servant or an enslaved person. He was likely taken from Curaçao or Guinea, hubs of the Dutch slave trade.
The Holy Family with Saint Joseph Holding the Rose
The Mannerist artist Bartholomaeus Spranger created this drawing as the model for a print and sent it from the Prague court of Rudolph II to the Netherlands to be engraved by the printmaker Pieter de Jode.
Study for Perseus
In this study for the figure of Perseus, the Greek mythological hero launches himself into flight. To understand the properties of light on metal, Burne-Jones and his partner Georgiana fashioned miniature sets of armor.
Portrait of Mai (“Omai”) (Purchased jointly with National Portrait Gallery, London) (1776) by Sir Joshua ReynoldsThe J. Paul Getty Museum
Paintings: Portrait of Mai (“Omai”)
This magnificent portrait depicts Mai (or “Omai”), the first Polynesian visitor to Great Britain. Painted in London by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the portrait shows Mai standing barefoot in an idealized Tahitian landscape.
His pose recalls that of the Apollo Belvedere, one of the most famous sculptures from classical antiquity.
The Holy Family (1520) by Gerard DavidThe J. Paul Getty Museum
The Holy Family
The Flemish painter Gerard David, celebrated for his delicate brushwork and brilliant palette, painted small-scale devotional subjects with deep compassion.
David portrayed the Holy Family at home in a contemporary Flemish interior, with the Virgin tenderly embracing her son, attended by Joseph holding a bowl of milk-soup for the infant.
Bouquet of Flowers in a Two-Handled Vase by Ludger tom Ring the Younger and 1560The J. Paul Getty Museum
Bouquet of Flowers in a Two-Handled Vase
The solitary jewel-like flower arrangements by the German painter Ludger tom Ring the Younger announce a new subject in painting and anticipate by decades the still lifes of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish artists.
This array features a combination of large, cultivated flowers, such as roses, and a variety of delicate field flowers and foliage in a luxurious enameled glass vase.
Portrait of Friedrich Christian, Prince of Saxony (1751) by Anton Raphael MengsThe J. Paul Getty Museum
Portrait of Friedrich Christian, Prince of Saxony
Mengs was only 23 years old when he painted this splendid likeness of Friedrich Christian (1722–1763), heir to the throne at the Saxon court in Dresden.
The portrait conceals the prince’s disability (likely cerebral palsy), which would have prevented him from adopting the confident stance seen here.
Manuscripts: Irmengard and Her Husband Werner
Created in Reichenau, Germany, the Irmengard Codex was commissioned around 1053—nearly 1,000 years ago—by Irmengard of Nellenburg, a female member of the nobility.
The image shows Irmengard presenting this book in memory of her deceased husband and son, who were killed in battle in 1053.
Irmengard was related to Pope Leo IX (1002–1054) and was also the niece of Emperor Henry II (973–1024). Women in this period held significant political and financial power, prior to major Church reforms of the second half of the 11th century that weakened female authority.
Cup and Saucer (gobelet litron), 2nd size (about 1782) by Sèvres ManufactoryThe J. Paul Getty Museum
Sculpture & Decorative Arts: Cup and Saucer
The cup and saucer commemorate the birth of the dauphin (French for “dolphin” and indicating the eldest son of the king), born to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in 1781.
Dolphins adorn the inside of the saucer, and the cup has a dolphin-shaped handle that was introduced at the Sèvres porcelain manufactory to mark the occasion.
The Apotheosis of Michelangelo and Allegory of the Tiber and Arno
The Apotheosis of Michelangelo and Allegory of The Tiber and Arno (1564) by Bartolomeo AmmannatiThe J. Paul Getty Museum
These two scenes were created in homage to artist Michelangelo Buonarroti, seen just left of the center of the Apotheosis relief.
Their ingenuous compositions with multiple rows of figures and depths of relief, the perfect anatomy and extreme elegance of the river gods, and the quality of the bronze casting are all elements that exemplify the art of Ammannati.
Sudanese Man and Woman from the French Colonies by Charles-Henri-Joseph CordierThe J. Paul Getty Museum
Sudanese Man and Woman from the French Colonies
The Sudanese man who modeled for this sculpture was a percussion player for Muslim festivities living in Algiers. The woman was born to one Black and one biracial parent in the French colonies of the Antilles.
Cordier excelled at creating naturalistic portraits with a colorful combination of materials in order to express his “idea of the universality of beauty.”
Photographs: Boulevard de Strasbourg
Atget documented the streets, facades, courtyards, and parks of Paris and its environs for over three decades.
His unsettling images of mannequins in shop windows attracted the attention of the French Surrealists, who published this image in their newspaper, La Révolution surréaliste (The Surrealist Revolution), in 1926.
Untitled (© María Magdalena Campos-Pons) (1997) by María Magdalena Campos-PonsThe J. Paul Getty Museum
Untitled
The daughter of an herbalist, María Magdalena Campos-Pons grew up attuned to the plants that thrived in Cuba, where she was born (in 1959) and raised.
When she emigrated to the United States, she made a series of works that evoke the barriers that block human passage yet cannot prevent plants from crossing freely.
These Heliconia—which grow in both the Caribbean and in North America—flourish in both places while the migration of people between those territories is highly restricted.
Untitled, from the “Eel” series
Prior to her untimely death at age 22, New York-based Francesca Woodman created complex photographic explorations that addressed the themes of temporality, surrealism, and feminism.
This unusually large exhibition print depicting a nude female body framing a bowl with two eels is one of her most iconic—and enigmatic—self-portraits.
© 2023 J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles
To cite this exhibition, please use: "Recent Acquisitions 2023: Collecting for the J. Paul Getty Museum" published online in 2023 via Google Arts & Culture, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
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