After completing his studies at the University and the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Davide began his career as curator at the National Gallery of Parma, Italy. Before joining the Getty Museum in 2014, he served as the director of the Galleria Estense in Modena from 2012 to 2014. He specializes in painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the Renaissance; the rediscovery of classical antiquity; and the history of collecting, with particular emphasis on the Italian Renaissance.
ABOUT THE COLLECTION
The Paintings collection encompasses over 400 notable European paintings produced before 1900. While its parameters reflect J. Paul Getty’s own interests, in the decades following his death in 1976 the collection expanded considerably beyond his predilection for Italian Renaissance and seventeenth–century Dutch and Flemish painting to include major examples of early Italian and Netherlandish painting, eighteenth– and nineteenth–century French painting, and the Spanish and German schools. Among the best–known works are Pontormo’s Portrait of a Halberdier, Orazio Gentileschi’s Danaë, Rembrandt’s An Old Man in Military Costume, Turner’s Modern Rome, Manet’s Jeanne (Spring), and Van Gogh’s Irises. Early paintings by Rembrandt (1628–34), as well as works by Rubens, Jacques‑Louis David, Monet, and Degas comprise areas of depth. The Department of Paintings continues to expand its holdings through selective acquisitions and gifts.
The collection is displayed in the skylit second–floor galleries of the Getty Museum and in conjunction with sculpture and decorative art on the plaza level.
CONTACT INFO
NEWS & STORIES

Small but Mighty
A view of 17th-century globalization through three Dutch paintings.
SCHOLARLY ESSAYS

Explore in-depth scholarly essays on select paintings from our collection.
- View of the Grand Canal: Santa Maria della Salute and the Dogana from Campo Santa Maria Zobenigo by Bernardo Bellotto
- Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase by Gustave Courbet
- Market Scene in an Imaginary Oriental Port by Jean-Baptiste Pillement
- La Surprise by Jean-Antoine Watteau
FEATURED VIDEO
Celebrate artistic independence and creativity by exploring James Ensor's ambitious masterpiece Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889.