Getty’s ‘Aphrodite’ Back on Her Pedestal : Art: After a year of restoration and engineering against quakes, the controversial $20-million Greek statue is back on view.

The J. Paul Getty Museum’s controversial “Aphrodite” sculpture is back on view after a year of conservation.

The towering limestone and marble figure, thought to represent the Greek goddess of love, was temporarily displayed at the museum during the summer of 1988, after the Getty purchased the spectacular piece, valued at $20 million.

An allegation that the ancient figure had been illegally removed from an archeological site in Sicily subsequently triggered an investigation and cast a dark cloud over the new acquisition, but Italian police reportedly have found no evidence of wrongdoing. Getty officials say they have heard nothing during the past year. Italian officials could not be reached for comment.

“Painful as the investigation was,” it was also a “healthy” process, antiquities curator Marion True said, because it showed that the museum had followed proper procedures in acquiring the artwork.

Recently installed in the museum’s Magna Grecia gallery, the late-5th-Century BC sculpture occupies a commanding position. And why not? The Getty’s “Aphrodite” is the only cult figure of the period to survive nearly intact from head to foot. The goddess is the work of an unknown artist working in Magna Grecia, the Greek colonies that flourished in Southern Italy and Sicily from the 8th to the 4th Century BC.

Visitors encountering “Aphrodite” come face to face with the essence of high classicism. What they do not see is that the museum’s largest and heaviest sculpture--measuring 7 1/2 feet in height and weighing nearly 1,000 pounds--stands on a metal isolator hidden in a massive pedestal. A cable running through the center of the figure attaches the sculpture to the 1,000-pound metal device, designed to allow the sculpture to glide through a major earthquake. Had the Bay Area quake struck in Malibu, conservators believe that “Aphrodite” would have behaved like a goddess. Chances are very good that the sculpture would have remained serene while the pedestal and the gallery shook violently. In the event of a temblor, the layered planes of the isolator are designed to move on tracks to counteract horizontal movement. If the floor bounces, as experts believe it would in an earthquake, the movement would set off a scissors action that absorbs vertical shock, antiquities conservator Jerry Podany said.

How does he know that the isolator would work this way? It has been tested with a stand-in sculpture. A chunky cement model roughly approximating the sculpture’s weight, mass and form has been attached to the isolator and subjected to a simulated earthquake on a computer-operated “shake table” at Anco Engineering in Culver City. While nervous members of the Getty staff stood by, technicians programmed movement that might compare to a quake measuring 6 or 8 points on the Richter scale. A videotape of the test shows that the model barely shifted while the isolator ran through its convulsive paces.

A simpler isolator was devised three years ago for the Getty’s archaic Greek “Kouros,” but the design for “Aphrodite” is far more sophisticated, allowing for more variations in seismic movement, Podany said. The device was designed in-house by Wayne Haak, a conservation technician and mount maker, and built in the Getty’s machine shop.

The figure arrived at the Getty with the bulk of her limestone body in three pieces, an unattached marble arm and foot, and assorted fragments. The body was reassembled for the introductory show, but the flow of the “wet” style drapery was interrupted by the two massive cracks and various smaller fissures. The marble head--deprived of the flowing limestone headdress that once covered it--also seemed distressingly small.

Now the stone figure is far more harmonious and complete, greatly enhanced by painstaking processes of cleaning and conservation. Getty conservators have replaced the detached arm (the other is lost), filled cracks in the limestone drapery and removed rough encrustations from the surface.

Decisions about how far conservation should go are determined on scientific and aesthetic grounds, True and Podany said. The general rule is to remove or disguise disruptive elements while maintaining the integrity of the ancient artwork. Paper pulp pressed into the cracks, for example, has been painted to match the stone, but the fills are slightly recessed so that cracks can be easily detected. A section of pulp that hides a metal joint used to attach the arm simulates broken stone and not a brand new section of an ancient sculpture.

Like the isolator, the paper-pulp solution was devised at the Getty. “We developed it here out of necessity after experimenting with cotton and foam materials,” Podany said.

Joining the three major pieces of the broken body called for sturdier measures. Podany didn’t want to permanently attach the pieces, but he did want them to fit neatly so that weight would be evenly distributed across the horizontally broken surfaces. The solution was epoxy, fixed to one side of the breaks and cast to fit into facing surfaces. Then the pieces could be safely stacked and secured by the tensioned cable that runs through the sculpture.

Cantilevering the arm to the body was an even bigger problem. In addition to the mechanical challenge, Podany had to determine the limb’s exact position. A cast of the shoulder socket offered two possibilities but eventually led to what Podany believes is the correct one--a welcoming gesture that balances the thrust of the body and provides a counterpoint to the head.

Most modern conservation techniques are reversible, so that treatments can be removed if they are found to be faulty or if new technology offers a better solution. Cleaning is another matter. Wary of chemical solvents that can’t be easily controlled, Podany and his colleagues test-cleaned small samples of the stone to determine what lay beneath centuries of encrustation.

“It was a dream surface,” Podany said. “Aphrodite’s” ancient surface was probably well preserved because the figure was made for a temple and protected by an indoor location, he said.

Persuaded that a thorough cleaning was merited, conservators removed soft deposits with deionized water. Hard encrustations--some of them much tougher than the underlying stone--were taken away with surgical scalpels.

The process required months of nerve-wracking work, Podany said. One slip of the scalpel could cause irreparable damage to the extremely valuable artwork.

“We knew the conservation process would be complicated, but you can never predict exactly what you will find,” he said. “It’s a wonderful relief” to have completed the job, he said. “We are extremely proud.”

True’s only regret is that the sculpture isn’t currently exhibited in natural light, where it “just glows and comes alive.” That ideal situation will materialize in the sculpture’s next incarnation--after the Getty’s Brentwood facility opens in 1994 and the antiquities collection takes over the entire museum in Malibu.

BACKGROUND The Getty Museum bought its “Aphrodite” during the summer of 1988 after receiving approvals from Italy’s Ministry of Culture. No claims against the piece came forward during the international investigation, but shortly before the museum closed the sale, a reporter for Connoisseur magazine contacted the museum about a rumor that the statue had been illegally excavated from Morgantina, Sicily. Italian officials at first discounted the rumor but, later, Graziella Fiorentini, superintendent of sculptural property for the area, charged that the statue might have been removed from the site during the ‘70s. Interpol and the Italian national police launched an investigation, but have produced no evidence of foul play. The controversy died away last November.