Description
A collection of modern photographs assembled by the Getty Research Institute of architectural sculpture, mostly detached from
the original location, concentrating on works of the Greek and Roman periods, from the Greek Archaic through the late Roman
Empire (6 century BC-6th century AD). Coverage is most complete for works from sites in Greece and Italy, but the collection
includes images of architectural sculpture from monuments in other countries, including Albania, Algeria, Egypt, England,
France, Germany, Lebanon, Libya, Romania, 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.