Museum-quality paintings by Édouard Manet still remaining in private hands are exceptionally rare, and the Getty Museum is extremely fortunate in its most recent addition to the paintings collection: Manet’s Portrait of Madame Brunet, which goes on view at the… More»
A beautiful bronze Double Head, attributed to the Italian sculptor Francesco Primaticcio, has just joined the Museum’s collection. Though made by an Italian, it was commissioned by a Frenchman: Francis I, the king of France, for his palace at Fontainebleau… More»
Can an artist do justice to a beautiful woman? This sensuous terracotta bust by Joseph Chinard captures the elegance and grace of legendary beauty Juliette Récamier, a socialite renowned for her wit and notorious for her love affairs. Holding a… More»
Nowadays, seeing a silly picture of a person is hardly unusual. Showing personality is a good thing. Social customs weren’t quite the same in 18th-century France, when Joseph Ducreux painted this self-portrait. An official court painter, he was known for refined… More»
Question of the Week is a series inspired by our Masterpiece of the Week tours, offered daily at 4:00 p.m. Featuring an open and upbeat discussion among visitors and gallery teachers, the tours feature a new object and pose a… More»
Even though it’s been more than a decade, I remember it as though it were yesterday. Like so many art history students, I made my first pilgrimage to the Louvre—tantamount to mecca for an art nerd like me—to feast my… More»
Robert Weingarten’s work spans the possibilities of photography—from traditional black-and-white prints to digital mashups composed entirely in Photoshop. In advance of his lecture at the Getty Center this Thursday, September 16, I spoke to him about his approaches to photography—and… More»
Tonight is the Miss Universe pageant, in which contestants vied for a title and a Trump Tower apartment by donning swimsuits, evening gowns, and out-there costumes. (Update—Mexico won.) But beauty queens are just so bland compared to the women that… More»
When we set out to design this blog, we looked at irises—lots of them. We asked curators and members of the blog team to pick favorite irises, both literal and metaphorical. There were camera irises, like those in the cache… More»
Remarkably realistic for medieval illuminated beasts, which were often fabulous admixtures of fantasy and fur. The unicorn is clearly drawn from life, for example.