East Pavilion of Getty Center, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, United States

East Pavilion exhibited european sculpture and Italian decorative arts from 1600 to 1800. Included a generous selection of Italian furniture from the mid-sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. The objects collected are sumptuous and refined pieces of the highest quality that have significantly enriched the Italian Decorative Arts galleries. Masterpieces makes these objects such compelling examples of the furnituremaker’s art. Many of the Museum’s finest pieces of porcelain, glass, and tin-glazed earthenware are also represented.

The J. Paul Getty Museum’s shocking collection of European decorative arts, which included 17th-century Baroque art of Dutch, French, Flemish, and Spanish paintings; sculpture; 18th century paintings; furnished paneled rooms dating up to 1800; Italian decorative arts of the 1700s through 1900; 19th-century paintings; Neoclassical, Romantic, and Symbolist sculpture; paintings dating up to 1600; medieval and Renaissance sculpture and decorative arts are a mere sampling of what is on display.

In 1984 the Getty Museum start to acquired a collection of Italian Renaissance majolica, or tin-glazed earthenware. Decorative Arts reveals the splendor and fine crafting of both functional and decorative items, including furniture and cabinetry, stoneware, glassware, porcelain, silver, and tapestry. The collection of urniture and decorative arts, a collection acquisitions include material in virtually every category: various individual types of furniture, and a miscellany o f fine Neoclassical pieces.

Paintings focuses primarily on the European schools of Italian, Dutch, Flemish, and French works and gloriously represents some of the finest examples by Breughel, Monet, Rembrandt, Renoir, Van Dyke, and Van Gogh, to name a few.

European sculpture is the main focus of this department, it is also charged with broadening the representation of European furniture and decorative arts. Collections of Italian maiolica and European glass were among its first purchases. Since then Italian furniture, Kunstkammer objects, metalwork, and works of art in many other categories have been added. The collection was key components in the museum’s recreation of Italian interiors and have played an essential role in our visitors’ experience and understanding of this critical period of European art.

These extraordinary works epitomize the skill and artistry that made the aristocratic life the epitome of elegant extravagance, and the envy of collectors throughout Europe. The works were created as luxury objects that would have decorated the lavishly furnished residences of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. Many, such as the clocks, candelabra and the inkstand, were made for practical use, but their sophisticated design and rare materials were also meant to demonstrate the wealth, prestige and taste.

1st floor: Italian Decorative Arts
The Department of Sculpture and Decorative Arts oversees a rich collection of nearly 1,700 objects, spanning from the late-12th to mid-20th centuries. The European decorative arts holdings, which J. Paul Getty began acquiring in the 1930s, count among the world’s finest for their quality, rarity, and historical interest. Of particular importance are objects created in France under the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI. The decorative arts collection also features premier examples of furniture, silver, ceramics, glass, textiles, clocks, and gilt bronzes that date from the Renaissance to the early 1800s, as well as medieval and Renaissance stained glass.

Established in 1984, the European sculpture collection has grown significantly to include rare masterpieces made from the Middle Ages through the early 1900s. This ensemble was enriched in 2004 by a generous donation from Fran and Ray Stark, comprising of 28 pieces by prominent artists of the 20th century.

The department’s holdings can be viewed mostly on the plaza level of the Museum’s permanent galleries, with a few pieces on the second level. The majority of the Fran and Ray Stark Sculpture Collection is exhibited at the lower tram station and at the top of the hill around the Getty Center.

2nd floor: European Paintings
The Paintings collection encompasses over 400 notable European paintings produced before 1900. The collection is displayed in the skylit second–floor galleries of the Getty Museum and in conjunction with sculpture and decorative art on the plaza level. While its parameters reflect J. Paul Getty’s own interests, in the decades following his death in 1976 the collection expanded considerably beyond his predilection for Italian Renaissance and seventeenth–century Dutch and Flemish painting to include major examples of early Italian and Netherlandish painting, eighteenth– and nineteenth–century French painting, and the Spanish and German schools.

Among the best–known works are Pontormo’s Portrait of a Halberdier, Orazio Gentileschi’s Danaë, Rembrandt’s An Old Man in Military Costume, Turner’s Modern Rome, Manet’s Jeanne (Spring), and Van Gogh’s Irises. Early paintings by Rembrandt (1628–34), as well as works by Rubens, Jacques‑Louis David, Monet, and Degas comprise areas of depth. The Department of Paintings continues to expand its holdings through selective acquisitions and gifts.

Highlights:

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Gallery E202
The Return from War: Mars Disarmed by Venus / Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder
While this magnificent late Louis XIV or early Régence frame is almost 100 years later than the painting, its lively ornamental forms complement the brushwork. It features scrolling acanthus leaves and flower ornaments, with pronounced centers and corners. On this large scale, the frame’s ornament enhances the drama of the scene.

Coast View with the Abduction of Europa / Claude Lorrain
This Louis XIV frame features a ribbed sight (inner) molding, repeating fleur-de-lys (stylized lily), strapwork (intertwined bands) and acanthus leaf ornament, as well as pronounced scallop shells in the corners. It was selected specifically for this painting. The fleur-de-lys, symbol of French royalty, reinforces the painter’s connections with France and patrons there, while the scallop shells appropriately correspond to the maritime subject of the painting—Europa, princess of Tyre, about to be carried across the sea by Jupiter to found the new continent of Europe.

Gallery E203
Vase of flowers, fruit piece, Jan Van Huysum, 1722
Both of these frames date from the Régence period, the years between Louis XIV’s death in 1715 and Louis XV’s accession to the throne in 1723. They have a sanded frieze and pierced and scrolling acanthus leaf corner ornaments with flower tendrils—decorations in keeping with the botanical subjects of the paintings. The sight molding—the raised design on the inside (sight) edge of the frame, closest to the painting—bears a leaf pattern. The frames were created as a pair, but the paintings were not.

Gallery E204
Two watermills and an open sluice, Jacob Van Ruisdael, 1653
This frame was made during the reign of Louis XIII (1610–1643), when the first unified style for frames emerged in France. Louis XIII frames often feature motifs derived from the classical past and nature. This frame has sight molding (edge closest to the painting) in a ribbon pattern, with repeated acanthus leaf ornament. Its robust, yet restrained ornament was considered the ideal molding by French collectors of Dutch paintings in the 1700s.

The music lesson, gerard ter borch, about 1668
This Louis XIII frame is beautifully carved and features leaf and berry running ornament, punctuated by sunflowers, symbol of the French king. The delicate sight edge, which features a lamb’s tongue pattern, complements ter Borch’s refined brushwork.

A wooded landscape with travelers on a path through a hamlet, Meindert Hobbema, about 1665
This superb Louis XIV frame has a full array of ornament: acanthus strapwork (intertwined bands) with scallop shell ornament; pronounced demi ornaments (on the rail, between the corners) and corner cartouches; a diaper pattern (small repeated diamond shapes), sanded flat with plumes; and original gilding. The ornamentation, as well as the beautiful warm color of the gilding, complements Hobbema’s expressive textured handling of paint.

J. Paul Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center features works of art dating from the eighth through the twenty-first century, showcased against a backdrop of dramatic architecture, tranquil gardens, and breathtaking views of Los Angeles. The collection includes European paintings, drawings, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, decorative arts, and European, Asian, and American photographs.

The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and is the primary location of the museum. The collection features Western art from the Middle Ages to the present. Its estimated 1.3 million visitors annually make it one of the most visited museums in the United States. The museum’s second location, the Getty Villa, is in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood (though self-claims in the city of Malibu) and displays art from ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria.

In 1974, J. Paul Getty opened a museum in a re-creation of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum on his property in Pacific Palisades, California. In 1982, the museum became the richest in the world when it inherited US$1.2 billion. In 1983, after an economic downturn in what was then West Germany, the Getty Museum acquired 144 illuminated medieval manuscripts from the financially struggling Ludwig Collection in Aachen; John Russell, writing in The New York Times, said of the collection, “One of the finest holdings of its kind ever assembled, it is quite certainly the most important that was in private hands.” In 1997, the museum moved to its current location in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles; the Pacific Palisades museum, renamed the “Getty Villa”, was renovated and reopened in 2006.

One can see a large part of the collection on the website of the J. Paul Getty Museum. In addition to the paintings and manuscripts, which are discussed in more detail below, there are also important collections of drawings, sculptures and photographs that can be consulted online.

In the Getty Villa about 44,000 pieces are housed from a period of 6,500 BC. The collection includes sculptures, reliefs, mosaics, panel paintings and frescoes, vases, bottles, goblets and amforae, candles and oil lamps, jewelry, pins, bracelets, mirrors, combs, buckles and various ornaments, coins, monuments and votiefgiften and a collection of Most diverse items.

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