Getty Adds to Antiquities With Third-Century Work
The J. Paul Getty Museum announced Wednesday that it had acquired a third-century Roman marble sarcophagus that includes a detailed relief carving of a Dionysiac vintage festival. It is the museum’s second antiquities purchase since it adopted a new, stricter policy on buying ancient objects in 2006.
The sarcophagus, which was bought from a private collector in London for an undisclosed sum, is to go on display at the Getty Villa next Thursday as the centerpiece of a new installation focused on wine and wine-making, Karol Wight, a senior curator of antiquities at the museum, said in an interview at the Getty Villa.
The acquisition was announced the same day that the Association of Art Museum Directors issued new guidelines tightening its recommended restrictions on how its members collect antiquities. The Getty already follows a similar but stricter policy, which requires that it obtain documentation or substantial evidence that an artifact was removed from its country of origin before Nov. 17, 1970, or that it was legally exported from there after that date and legally imported to the United States. (The museum group’s recommendations give members discretion on whether to heed the 1970 cutoff.) The Getty’s first purchase under the new policy was last year.
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The sarcophagus, which was bought from a private collector in London for an undisclosed sum, is to go on display at the Getty Villa next Thursday as the centerpiece of a new installation focused on wine and wine-making, Karol Wight, a senior curator of antiquities at the museum, said in an interview at the Getty Villa.
The acquisition was announced the same day that the Association of Art Museum Directors issued new guidelines tightening its recommended restrictions on how its members collect antiquities. The Getty already follows a similar but stricter policy, which requires that it obtain documentation or substantial evidence that an artifact was removed from its country of origin before Nov. 17, 1970, or that it was legally exported from there after that date and legally imported to the United States. (The museum group’s recommendations give members discretion on whether to heed the 1970 cutoff.) The Getty’s first purchase under the new policy was last year.