Getty Villa

J. Paul Getty, one of the wealthiest men of the 20th century, first visited Herculaneum in 1912 at the age of 19.  Thus began a lifelong fascination with the ancient world fueled by Getty's imaginary visions of the lives of Roman statesmen and entrepreneurs that he considered his antecedents.  Getty purchased his first antiquity in 1939 and by 1955 he had acquired enough ancient art to open a small museum in his ranch house constructed in a canyon.near the famous surfing beaches of Malibu, California.

Getty continued to collect antiquities as well as European decorative art like furnishings used by monarchs like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.  Anxious to share his expanding collections with the public, Getty announced plans to construct a new museum complex that would be a reproduction of the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum on 1970.  

"What could be more logical than to display it [ancient art] in a classical building where it might originally have been seen." Getty explained to skeptical critics.  These same critics condemned the project, listing it as a local cultural insult and the flimsy fabrication of Disney set designers.  But Getty knew what he liked and counted on his proven instincts to create an attractive, refreshing environment where the public could share time-travel experience and make lasting connections with their cultural past.

The Villa opened on January 16, 1974.  Sadly, J. Paul Getty never had a chance to see the finished museum.  He died just two years later in 1976.  But Getty ensured that his beloved art collection and shrine to the ancient past would not languish in future years.  He left a bequest of 400 million shares of Getty Oil stock to fund a Foundation that would finance a new museum,  the Getty Center in Los Angeles, housing Getty's collection of  European paintings, drawings, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, decorative arts, and European and American photographs, as well as an art research institute and a conservatory program that has assisted cultural institutions all over the world in the preservation of our collective human heritage.

The Villa, reopened in 2006 after an extensive nine year rennovation that introduced natural lighting via skylights to its larger galleries and structural improvements to minimize potential damage from earthquakes, now houses over 44,000 works of ancient art from Greece, Rome and Etruria of which 1,200 are on exhibit at any one time. The oldest date back to 6500 BC but the majority of items were created between 700 BC and 300 AD.  The artefacts are arranged thematically to provide social context to the exhibit rather than chronologically so visitors may wander freely about.

The Villa's sculpture collection is filled with the erudite contenances of Greek and Roman men and women including a rare sculpture of Hephaistion placed appropriately beside a sculpture of Alexander the Great.  A beautifully preserved bronze bust of a young Roman from the 1st century BCE crafted in Asia Minor looks very much like a young Marcus Agrippa, right hand man to the emperor Augustus, also on exhibit.

Mosaic lovers will admire a spectacular 2nd century CE mosaic depicting the seizure of Briseis from Homer's Iliad.  If frescoes are among your favorite art forms, you can view a variety of maenads and satyrs as well as legendary couples like Bacchus and Ariadne.

The Getty's ancient glass collection is one of the largest in the world featuring double-headed Janus flasks,  fluted bowls, and exquisite perfume bottles shaped like swans, fish and even a dormouse.

The museum has a special gallery devoted to Fayum mummy portraits.  In it, you can view the red shrouded mummy of Herakleides, the star of the Getty's new The Mummification Process animation.  Another crowd favorite is a display of naturalistic gold and silver drinking rhytons in the shapes of griffin, lions and a stag.

Of course, just wandering the grounds of the Villa is an educational experience in itself.  The fruit-and-flower swags and song birds painted on the walls of the outer peristyle garden are copied from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor in Pompeii.  The long collonade of the outer peristyle garden is designed after the architecture found in the Villa San Marco in Stabiae.  A portico leading to the outer peristyle garden is painted with the scene of a tholos and hanging fish and ducks is based on a painting from the House of the Labyrinth at Pompeii.

Don't forget to look down too.  The intricate mosaic floors of polished marble in the triclinium is designed after floors discovered in the House of the Deer at Herculaneum.  It's bountiful ceiling paintings were based on the House of the Fruit Orchard in Pompeii.

The much smaller East Garden contains a replica of a mosaic fountain with two theater masks depicting Herakles copied from the House of the Great Fountain in Pompeii while its circular central fountain spouts refreshing cascades of water from the bronze heads of civets, carnivores found in North Africa that were depicted in the original fountain in the Villa dei Papiri.  Even the herb garden features a replica of a statuette of Silenos riding a wineskin that was found in the impluvium of Villa dei Papiri.

One of the most elaborate inside spaces is the gallery known as the basilica.  The long gallery includes a vaulted apse at one end flanked by rows of columns topped by distinctive four-color Corinithian capitals based on an example found in the House of the Deer in Herculaneum.  A soft light filters into the space through thin sheets of alabaster, used in ancient times for windows in the houses of wealthy.  Acanthus motifs used profusely in the ceiling design were copied from a niche in the House of Menander.  Sculptures of various muses still bearing traces of their original gilt or polychromy stand respectfully between the columns.

The Getty Villa is presently open Thursday–Monday 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.  It will once again be open on Wednesdays beginning October 14.  Photography is allowed without flash.  Admission is free but a timed entry ticket is required. Tickets can be obtained online. Parking is $15 but does not require a reservation.