Descriptive Summary
Biographical/Historical Note
Other Finding Aids
Administrative Information
Scope and Content of Collection
Indexing Terms
Descriptive Summary
Title: Study photographs of ancient vases
Date (inclusive): 1900s
Number: 76.P.18
Creator/Collector:
Getty Research Institute
Physical Description:
96.1 linear feet
(456 boxes)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, California, 90049-1688
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: A collection of modern photographs of Greek and Roman vases assembled by the Getty Research Institute. Photographs of Attic
black- and red-figured vases attributed to particular vase-painters by J. D. Beazley comprise the largest component of the
collection. Coverage of South Italian red-figured vases is also significant. Coverage of other ancient vase-painting styles
(including Corinthian, Lakonian, Etruscan, Boeotian, and East Greek examples) is less complete.
Language: Collection material is in
English
Biographical/Historical Note
In 1974, the J. Paul Getty Museum began assembling a "photo library" by consolidating the visual resources of each existing
curatorial department. By the early 1980s, the Photo Archive was actively acquiring large collections of photographs from
commercial and private sources and scholars' archives that contained a photographic component. In 1983, the nearly one million
photographs of the Photo Archive were incorporated into the Research Institute's Special Collections.
Other Finding Aids
The
Photo Archive Database includes photograph level access to approximately 71% of the photographs in this collection.
Administrative Information
Access
Publication Rights
Processing History
Finding aid created in 2009.
Scope and Content of Collection
An assembled collection of modern photographs of Greek and Roman vases. Photographs of Attic black- and red-figured vases
attributed to particular vase-painters by J. D. Beazley comprise the largest component of the collection. Coverage of South
Italian red-figured vases is also significant. Coverage of other ancient vase-painting styles (including Corinthian, Lakonian,
Etruscan, Boeotian, and East Greek examples) is less complete. The collection is particularly strong in its documentation
of ancient vases in American museums, as well as of significant collections in Europe.
The collection contains photographs from numerous sources including commercial vendors and photographers, museum collections,
auction houses, research institutions' archives, excavation campaigns, scholars' archives and collections, and photographic
projects sponsored by the Getty Research Institute. One such project documents the major portion of the Attic black-figured
olpai and oinochoai in the Hermitage Museum and includes limited coverage of other Attic figured vases in the Hermitage. These
vases are represented in circa 720 Cibachrome prints made from photographs taken by Andrew Clark.
Another Institute-sponsored campaign, begun in 1986 and carried out by Barbara Bini under the direction of Gloria Ferrari
Pinney, documents the collection of Attic red-figured vases of the archaic period in the Museo archeologico nazionale di Tarquinia
(circa 450 photographs). The Amasis Painter Exhibition Photo Project (circa 500 photographs) contributed original photographs
of vases in the 1985-86 exhibition, The Amasis Painter and his world, as well as copy prints from various sources provided
by Dietrich von Bothmer, of related vases used as comparanda in the exhibition catalog. (There are also 13 preparatory sketches
for the catalog.)
Significant scholarly archives acquired by the repository and dispersed into this collection include those of Giovanni Becatti,
Ludwig Goldscheider, and Kyle M. Phillips, as well as a study collection acquired from the Dept. of Classics at the University
of California, Los Angeles. The collection contains copy prints from A. D. Trendall as well as from research institutions,
among them the Beazley Archive at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University; and the American School of Classical Studies at
Athens.
The most important commercial sources include Alinari (together with the Anderson and Brogi archives), Bildarchiv Foto Marburg,
Bulloz, Christie's, Photographie Giraudon, Gabinetto fotografico nazionale (Rome), Hirmer Verlag, Réunion des musées nationaux,
Sotheby's, Max Hutzel, Barbara Bini, and Emile Serafis.
Arrangement
Black- and red-figured Attic vases are arranged according to the system established by J. D. Beazley in his publications,
and
(second edition). Attic black- and red-figured vases not attributed to a particular artist by Beazley are arranged alphabetically
by shape, then location (city, museum).
South Italian red-figured vases arranged by names of vase painters established by A. D. Trendall in publications on this vase
type.
All other vases, figured or not, arranged chronologically, by culture, by style, then location (city, museum).
Indexing Terms
Subjects - Names
Amasis, 6th century BC
Becatti, Giovanni, 1912-1973 -- Photograph collections
Goldscheider, Ludwig, 1896-1973 -- Photograph collections
Phillips, Kyle Meredith -- Photograph collections
Subjects - Corporate Bodies
University of California, Los Angeles. Department of Classics -- Photograph collections
Subjects - Topics
Vases, Ancient
Vases, Ancient--Europe
Vases, Ancient--United States
Vases, Black-figured
Vases, Etruscan
Vases, Greek
Vases, Red-figured
Vases--Italy, Southern
Genres and Forms of Material
Ink drawings
Negatives
Photographic prints
Contributors
Beazley, J.D., (John Davidson), 1885-1970
Becatti, Giovanni, 1912-1973
Bini, Barbara
Clark, Andrew J., 1949-
Ferrari, Gloria, 1941-
Getty Research Institute
Goldscheider, Ludwig, 1896-1973
Gosudarstvennyĭ Ėrmitazh (Russia)
Hutzel, Max
Phillips, Kyle Meredith
Serafis, Emile
Trendall, A.D., (Arthur Dale), 1909-
University of California, Los Angeles. Department of Classics
Von Bothmer, Dietrich, 1918-