GETTY MUSEUM REVEALS ANCIENT GREEK STATUE

The J. Paul Getty Museum has revealed the acquisition of an ancient Greek marble sculpture that is arguably among the most important art purchases made in this country in the past half-century.

It is an over-life-size standing male nude figure called a Kouros, a type made in Greece from the 7th through the 5th centuries BC during the formative epoch known as the Archaic. So rare are these figures that scarcely a dozen complete examples are known to exist among some 250 fragmentary works. Only one other resides in the United States, in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which purchased it in 1932, the last time one came on the market.

Getty curator of antiquities Marion True revealed Wednesday that its Kouros has actually been in the museum for nearly three years undergoing conservation and rigorous examination for authenticity. Following Getty policy, she declined to reveal either the source or the price of the work, saying only that it was offered to the museum by a private family represented by a dealer, both based in Switzerland.

The rarity of the work makes even educated guesses at its price extremely speculative. One source close to the museum suggested that the Kouros was a relative bargain (well under the reported $4 million the museum paid for its renowned “Getty Bronze” in 1978), possibly purchased for as little as $1 million.

The Kouros is presently in the museum’s conservation laboratory encased in an open metal frame where it is undergoing revolutionary new conservation techniques to ensure its safety in earthquake-prone California. It will not be ready to go on public view until mid-October.

Museum officials unveiled the story of the Kouros in an attempt to forestall anticipated unfavorable publicity they fear will cast a pall over the historical and aesthetic importance of the work.

True and other Getty officials believe that the September issue of the art magazine Connoisseur will carry a story questioning the authenticity of the Kouros, an allegation the Getty vigorously denies in advance.

Connoisseur editor Thomas P.F. Hoving, formerly director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, reached by telephone at the magazine’s offices in New York, acknowledged the upcoming issue will carry a story about the Kouros but declined to comment on its contents. “Nah, I don’t want to do that. Read all about it in the September issue. It should be on the stands about Aug. 15,” he said.

Because of its immense wealth and prominence, the Getty has been plagued with questions about the propriety and authenticity of its acquisitions. Idiosyncratic opinion and innuendo that are the normal and ephemeral below-stairs gossip of the art world have translated into long magazine articles and fevered newspaper headlines when the subject is the Getty.

Thus far, none of these stories has proved a substantial impropriety or toppled a single attribution, but in a sphere where appearance and reputation are sometimes more important that substance, the Getty has become especially sensitive and cautious.

“It simply is not in the interest of any museum to have a work that isn’t right,” said True, a Harvard Ph.D. specializing in Greek vases. She explained that the field of ancient art is especially murky because of the vast expanse of time that separates us from the works.

“We have to be especially careful and to not even trust ourselves,” she said. True believes the objections in the Connoisseur article will be based on the opinions of an Italian conservation expert named Pico Cellini.

“I learned about his doubts so I interviewed him in Rome. If he had legitimate grounds, we wanted to know about them. He is perfectly nice and not at all hostile, but his reasons are all based on stylistic grounds. He finds a lot of anomalies in the work. Kouros figures are full of anomalies. That is part of their scholarly fascination. I couldn’t find any substance in his objections.”

True said that Cellini has also raised objections to other well-known archaic works, such as the Met’s Kouros, a noted stone throne in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and a standing goddess in Berlin, among others.

“Since our Kouros has been here we’ve worked very diligently to get a variety of opinions. Virtually every known expert in the field has seen him. Not only do the vast majority think he is right, they have repeatedly expressed astonishment at his remarkable state of preservation and beautiful execution.”

In Greek, kouros simply means “young man.” Some scholars believe he represents the god Apollo, others think the figure stands for the donors of votive tombs and temples. In many ways, the Getty Kouros is typical. He stands straight to the front, his arms stiffly to the side and one foot advanced.

At a glance, the figures may seem awkward and badly articulated. A second look reveals wonderful contained energy like that of a coiled spring. Probably based on Egyptian prototypes, the figures have come to symbolize fresh eagerness and potential. They are the wellspring of all Western figurative art.

Characteristically, the Getty Kouros smiles the sweet “archaic smile” full of innocence and energy. In other ways he is unusual. His nose and penis are broken; there are also a few minor blemishes. Aside from that, the massive 6-foot-7, 800-pound body is complete and shows a master carver at work. Among the “anomalies” that make him interesting are stylized hair, eyes and hands in handsome decorative contrast to the sensitive realism of the carving of the feet and the soft flesh about the mouth. Art connoisseurs love the Kouros figures for their rich inventiveness within apparent sameness. In style, the Getty figure is well advanced, with defined pectorals, abdominal muscles and a general vigorous elegance.

Jerry Podany, who heads the Getty’s antiquities conservation laboratory, has spent months piecing together the figure, whose arms, lower legs and feet were broken off. He has also run tests that place the marble in a particular quarry on the Island of Thasos. Ever wary of being seduced by his own findings, he called in outside experts including Stanley Margolis, a geo-chemist from UC Davis. Through testing, Margolis determined that the surface of the marble comes from ancient times.

Such findings argue for the authenticity of the work and support True’s hypothesis that this is an island work conceivably executed on Thasos by a sculptor from Paros around 530 BC.

How it got to Switzerland is anybody’s guess, but in case the Greek government might have any claims against the work, the Getty communicated with Greek authorities, who said they had no claim.

How it was broken is also subject to conjecture, but one possibility is that it was toppled in an ancient earthquake. To prevent possible earthquake damage here, the Getty will place the statue on a two-part metal base. The bottom is a material used in running shoes that will cushion vertical shock. Above that is a metal riser on ball bearings with a centering mechanism to ride out horizontal movement.

In the past, conservationists favored joining broken parts with big metal rods in three-inch holes; that practice ultimately weakened the marble. Podany & Co. devised a method where the whole is held together by long springs used in aircraft construction. These run through quarter-inch channels that preserve the marble. If badly shaken, the parts would simply open and close slightly.