Masterpieces of the J. Paul Getty Museum: European Sculpture

entrances to an unusually large percentage of America's greatest museums are graced

with a Rodin bronze—like a corporate logo intended to convey an immediate message:

"This is an art museum"—while almost all of these same institutions devote a greater

amount of gallery space to displaying painting than sculpture.)

It should be evident to the reader of the present volume that the J. Paul Getty

Museum's sculpture collection is far from comprehensive or coherent in any rigorous

way. It is the most recently created, the smallest, but the most diversified of the

Museum's collections. It ranges in time from the 1470s to 1911. It includes a wide

variety of media: plaster, terracotta, wood, polychromed wood, ivory, alabaster, marble,

bronze, silver, and gold. Typologically, it is also varied and includes portrait busts,

ideal heads, single figures, groups, reliefs, and several works created to perform practical

functions. Some objects are religious, others secular or decorative. There are represented

religious, mythological, allegorical, and genre subjects. If there is one consistent

thread that holds the collection together, it is, I hope, a high level of aesthetic quality,

historical interest, and rarity. Whether or not this is the case is for the reader to decide.

But it is undeniable that the decision by the Director and Trustees of the J. Paul Getty

Museum to create a curatorial department focused on European sculpture has helped

make the Museum special. I also hope that this modest book, containing selected

highlights of our collection, will inspire interest in a relatively neglected field.

PETER FUSCO

Curator

NOTE TO THE READER

Entries are arranged in chronological order.
Dimensions are given in centimeters, followed by inches in parentheses.
A single dimension indicates height; a second, width; a third, depth.

In inscriptions, a slash mark indicates the beginning of a new line.

In the accession number given for each object, the first two digits

indicate the year in which the work was acquired by the Museum.

INTRODUCTION 11