Getty Launches First Online Scholarly Collection Catalogue on Ancient Amber Holdings

First of many planned online collection catalogs making latest research, provenance, and technical data available to scholars around the world

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Nov 26, 2012

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The J. Paul Getty Museum is launching the first of many planned online collection catalogues with Ancient Carved Ambers in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Getty Publications, 2012, online publication).

These catalogues aim to make the latest research, provenance, and technical data on a wide range of objects available, free of charge, to scholars around the world. Exquisite high-definition images with full zooming capability allow the objects to be viewed in great detail. The catalogue entries will be updated as new information becomes available.

Ancient Carved Ambers in the J. Paul Getty Museum opens with a general introduction to amber in the ancient world and then presents fifty-six Etruscan, Greek, and Italic carved ambers in the J. Paul Getty Museum—the second largest collection of this material in the United States and one of the most important in the world. Each piece is given a full description, including typology, style, chronology, and iconography, and is beautifully illustrated in color. The catalogue concludes with technical notes about scientific investigations of these objects and the Baltic amber from which they are carved, work that resulted from a collaborative partnership between Museum conservators and conservation scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute, both programs of the J. Paul Getty Trust.

This catalogue has benefited from research and innovations from the Online Scholarly Catalogue Initiative (OSCI), a joint effort by the Getty Foundation and J. Paul Getty Museum. Collaborating with eight other museums, OSCI aims to transform how museums disseminate scholarly information about their permanent collections by making it available through web-based digital formats.

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