"Everything changes, even stone." Claude Monet wrote these words in a letter and vividly demonstrated them in paint, conveying a wondrous combination of permanence and mutability as the sun daily ...

This information comes from the Museum's collection database, and in some cases is incomplete or awaiting refinement. Researching the collection is a core component of our work, and we continue to ...

This detailed book is a “how-to” guide to building controlled vocabulary tools, cataloging and indexing cultural materials with terms and names from controlled vocabularies, and using vocabularies in ...

Jean-François de Troy made tableaux de mode famous. Rather than the idyllic, theatrical depictions of his predecessors, De Troy showed the life of fashionable French society in a detailed, accurate, ...

Even during his lifetime, Juan de Valdés Leal became known for somber, if not macabre, subjects painted in a dramatic style. Commissions throughout his life included altarpieces, retables, vanitas ...

PDF editions of selected books, reports and guidelines published by the Getty Conservation Institute.

Ancient Iran, historically known as Persia, was the dominant nation of western Asia for over a millennium (about 550 BC–AD 650), with three native dynasties controlling an empire of unprecedented size ...

Since the 1960s, Barbara T. Smith (b. 1931 in Pasadena) has been at the forefront of artistic movements in California. Her work explores concepts that strike at the core of human nature, including ...

Nefertari, the favorite queen of Rameses II, was buried about 3,200 years ago in the most exquisitely decorated tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Queens. Discovered in 1904 by Italian explorer Ernesto ...

The four mysterious initials of the stamp B.V.R.B. concealed a dynasty of ébénistes of Netherlandish origin whose identity was only uncovered in 1957. Although all used the same Christian name and ...

André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, former merchant, actor, and daguerreotypist, patented his invention, the carte-de-visite (visiting card) photograph, in 1854. At nine-by-six centimeters, cartes were ...

The wood paneled chests, or cassoni, painted by Francesco di Giorgio early in his career are thought to represent the pinnacle of his achievements.