Description
A collection of modern photographs of ancient sites and monuments assembled by the Getty Resarch Institute, concentrating
on Greek and Roman architecture from the Greek Archaic through the late Roman Empire (6th century BC-6th century AD). Coverage
is most complete for sites and monuments located in Greece and Italy, but the collection also includes photos of sites located
in other countries, including Albania, Algeria, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya,
Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, and Yugoslavia.
Background
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.