Digitized Collections
Photo Archive
Some image collections within the Photo Archive are digitized, available to view and download online at any time. These collections are highlighted below.
Additional collections can be searched online via the Photo Archive database, which contains nonpictorial descriptive records. To view the associated images in person, register as a Library Reader to conduct on-site research.
Max Hutzel, Foto arte minore: Photographs of art and architecture in Italy, 1960–1990
SS. Salvatore, Arsoli (Rome), Italy, 1960–1990, Max Hutzel. Getty Research Institute, 86.P.8
Max Hutzel's Foto arte minore project contains more than 67,000 black-and-white photographic prints and approximately 86,400 negatives of Italian art from antiquity to the 18th century, including objects of the Etruscans and Romans as well as medieval, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque monuments. Included are interiors and exteriors of secular buildings, museum holdings, ancient ruins, and religious institutions covering a broad range of artistic forms and styles, including architecture, painting, frescoes, sculpture, manuscripts, metalwork, and other minor arts.
Digitized images from this collection can be accessed through the link “Connect to the digitized images” at the bottom of the Library Catalog record. They can also be searched via the Photo Archive database.
Explore Max Hutzel’s Foto arte minore in the Library Catalog
Wim Swaan Photograph Collection, 1951–1995
Photographic production materials for Lost Cities of Asia: Ceylon, Pagan, Angkor, 1966 or earlier, Wim Swaan. Getty Research Institute, 96.P.21
The Wim Swaan Photograph Collection is a comprehensive collection of photographs by the self-taught photographer and practicing architect. Swaan traveled widely and published many large-format books devoted to the art and architecture of ancient and disappearing cultures. Most images, taken in situ, reflect Swaan's interest in facades, architectural details, and decoration. Strong topical concentrations include Gothic, medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Europe; Islamic Spain, Turkey, Egypt and Iran; ancient Egypt and Greece; Asia, including India, Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, Cambodia and Sri Lanka; Pre-Columbian and colonial Latin America; and the landscape of the American West.
Series I, a small portion of which has been digitized and is available online, consists of a nearly complete set of photographs for each of Swaan's 18 publications, including four killed projects and one under consideration, arranged chronologically by publication date, 1963–1995.
Digitized images from this collection can be accessed through the link “Connect to selected digitized images from Series I” at the bottom of the Library Catalog record. They can also be searched via the Photo Archive database.
Explore the Wim Swaan Photograph Collection in the Library Catalog
Felbermeyer Photographs for the Central Collecting Point, Munich, ca. 1945– ca. 1949
Johannes Felbermeyer photographing a repatriated painting, ca. 1945-1949. Getty Research Institute, 89.P.4
Photographs in this collection were taken by Johannes Felbermeyer for the allied Central Collecting Point (CCP) in Munich, documenting the repatriation of stolen works of art after World War II and depicting the people involved. Persons appearing in the photographs include art historical and military figures, such as Edgar Breitenbach, General Lucius D. Clay, Erica Hofstaengl (record keeper), Charles Parkhurst, Captain Andrew Ritchie, Konrad Roethel, Rodolfo Siviero, and Craig Hugh Smyth.
Digitized images from this collection can be accessed through the link “Access digital files” at the bottom of the Library Catalog record. They can also be searched via the Photo Archive database.
In addition, photographs that Felbermeyer took of individual art objects themselves can be accessed in person through the Photo Archive, with text descriptions of the images available via online search in the Photo Archive database.
Explore Felbermeyer Photographs for the Central Collecting Point in the Library Catalog
Study Photographs of Tapestries
Swing, c. 1730-1760, George Smith Bradshaw (weaver), Jean Antoine Watteau (painter). Tapestry. Getty Research Institute, 97.P.7
The Photo Archive includes photographs of over 5,000 medieval and early modern tapestries from European and American collections. The descriptive catalog records in the Photo Archive database have recently been augmented with over 4,000 digital images of these tapestries. All catalog records are available online via the Photo Archive database. Access to digital images is provided where the J. Paul Getty Trust holds copyright.
The photographs constitute one of the few comprehensive visual resources for the study of tapestries. Most of the images represent tapestries of the late 15th to the late 18th century from the southern Netherlands (pre-1528), as well as Flemish, Dutch, and French works. English, German, and Italian tapestries, though less numerous, are present with important sets. Adolph S. Cavallo and Thomas Campbell provided expert identifications for cataloging.
The photographs were acquired from a variety of sources. Some were purchased directly from museums, image vendors, and auction houses, while others were taken from dealer and scholar archives that are now housed in the Getty Research Institute’s collections.
Digitized images from this collection can be accessed through the link “Access digital files” at the bottom of the Library Catalog record. They can also be searched via the Photo Archive database.
Explore Study Photographs of Tapestries on the Library Catalog