ART : The Apartment of Antiquities : A collection of 200 works from the ancient world moves from a Manhattan couple’s very private enclave to a rare public viewing at the Getty.

“Hi. I’m Larry Fleischman,” says an energetic man, striding down a hall and shaking my hand as I step out of an elevator in an elegant high-rise. The high-powered businessman, who gained financial success in television, real estate and investments before taking over Kennedy Galleries, one of the world’s leading American art dealerships, is anything but the intimidating character one might expect.

“And I’m Barbara,” says his effervescent wife, inviting me into the couple’s apartment, where treasures from ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria compete with stunning views of Manhattan.

Bronze and marble statues of Greek gods--Dionysus, Athena, Apollo and Venus--stand on pedestals and window ledges. Fragments of ancient frescoes hang on walls. Painted ceramic vessels sit on shelves, while jewelry, small sculptures and hardware nestle in vitrines. Seen through a broad sweep of windows, the bustling city resembles a modern tapestry with miniature buildings deliberately organized in geometric patterns.

It’s an astonishing environment, known only to the Fleischmans’ friends and to scholars who make pilgrimages here to see one of the world’s leading private collections of antiquities. Neither art as decor nor a pretentious showcase, the two-story apartment is a sort of live-in museum that mixes domestic comfort with aesthetic and intellectual stimulation.

As befits a couple who treat their art acquisitions as members of the family, the Fleischmans’ collecting is essentially a private love affair. But it’s about to go public in “A Passion for Antiquities: Ancient Art From the Collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman,” an exhibition of more than 200 objects opening on Thursday at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu. The show will continue at the Getty through Jan. 15, then travel to the Cleveland Museum of Art from Feb. 15 to April 23.

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The upcoming exhibition is the first and--the Fleischmans say-- only time most of the ancient artworks will be removed from their apartment and put in the public eye. Parting with their treasures for several months may prove to be traumatic, but a few days before the tedious process of wrapping and crating begins, the Fleischmans are excited about the project. “We trust the Getty,” Barbara says. “They are doing everything in the most professional way.”

Going all out for the event, the Getty will install the works in about half of its first floor galleries, which are appropriately housed in a replica of a 1st-Century Roman villa. Getty Trust Publications has issued a fully illustrated color catalogue of the Fleischman collection. In addition, a series of public programs will offer Roman-theme family days, lectures by scholars and Larry Fleischman and performances of ancient Greek and Roman comedies.

The Fleischman celebration recognizes private collectors as a source of inspiration and support for museums, says Getty Museum Director John Walsh. But the exhibition also offers a hint of the future at the Malibu villa. In 1997, after the Getty’s collections of European paintings, drawings and sculpture, decorative arts and photographs move to a new museum at the Getty Center in Brentwood, the villa will be converted into a museum and study center for antiquities. Temporary exhibitions will then become a major part of the program.

Large private collections of antiquities are extremely rare, but the Fleischmans’ cache is extraordinary, says Marion True, the Getty’s curator of antiquities.

“What distinguishes their collection is both the variety of the pieces--from a Cycladic head to beautiful late Roman glass--and their quality. Every single piece is exceptional. . . . I have never seen a collection selected with such sure taste,” she says.

The exhibition is designed to celebrate the Fleischmans’ day-to-day relationship to their chosen artworks. The idea is to preserve the intimate character of the relatively small objects and to display them in thematic categories, as at the Fleischmans’ apartment.

“Visitors will not only have the chance to view some of the most brilliant works of art from ancient Greece and Rome to be seen anywhere, but they will also have the unusual opportunity to experience some of the pleasures and sense of discovery that true collectors enjoy,” True says.

One thing exhibition visitors will not witness, however, is Larry’s penchant for tinkering with the collection’s arrangement. “He’s our installation and lighting man,” Barbara says. “If I hear a noise at 5 a.m., I know it’s Larry moving things around.” And if all is quiet at that hour, he is probably reading one of the books in their antiquities library.

Sometimes he brings pieces together because of their function, as in a group of metal weights. “Larry became fascinated with weights,” Barbara says of a display of tiny metal objects in the shape of animals.

“What makes them so incredible is that they weigh exactly what they are supposed to weigh, but they have been fashioned as something that’s really quite beautiful and charming. Apparently there’s always the yearning to make something functional look nice and interesting and pretty.”

Leading a tour through the apartment, Barbara points out themes and connections. One display case holds athletic figures, while theatrical scenes and characters--a favorite subject of the Fleischmans--turn up in several displays of terra-cotta vases, bronze pots and masks. As we progress from room to room, she compares different artists’ interpretations of Greek gods and points out details of particularly fine workmanship. But what pleases her most is the timelessness of the art’s human qualities.

“The thing that’s so extraordinary is that these objects make it very obvious that life hasn’t changed much,” Barbara says. “Family life, daily activities, the quest for intellectual stimulation, all kinds of concerns that you see in these objects are the same today as they were when these pieces were made. We have Saran Wrap, but life really has not changed.”

Pointing out a Roman bronze statue of a chubby toddler, she says: “Here’s a little boy, a baby Dionysus from the period before the eruption at Vesuvius. And look how beautifully observed he is. He’s just a chunky little Italian boy.”

Further on, Barbara confides her affinity with an Etruscan sprite clad only in shoes and jewelry--her own favorite accouterments.

Nodding at his wife’s remarks, and chiming in with occasional comments, Larry offers a small Hellenistic bronze likeness of an old woman. “This is a special old lady,” he says. “Scholars are debating who she is. One thinks she’s an old madam. One thinks an old prophetess. Another thinks she’s a spinner of wool.”

The varied array of artworks raises questions about how the Fleischmans decide to add to their collection. “The first thing is, visually we have to like it,” Larry says of potential acquisitions.

Barbara agrees: “The objects have to grab us. This is more than an intellectual pursuit.” And it is something they do together. “We don’t have his and hers pieces,” she says. “If one of us really disliked something we wouldn’t buy it, but we rarely disagree. I think that after 46 years of marriage we have sort of merged.”

The collection is so extensive that it may appear to be a marriage-long project, but most of the works have been assembled during the last 14 years. What’s more, it is not their first extraordinary collection. Indeed, the Fleischmans are so closely identified with a completely different genre--American art--that they might be expected to live with paintings by members of the Peale family or John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Charles Burchfield and John Marin.

They did, during a former life in Detroit. Larry founded the Archives of American Art in 1954, lectured on American art for the U.S. Information Agency in the 1960s and from 1962 to 1966 served as president of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Larry began to turn his passion into a profession in 1966, when he became a partner in Kennedy Galleries, a New York-based American art dealership. The Fleischmans moved to New York about 14 years ago, and he is now owner and chief operating officer of the firm, which recently moved its operation from 57th Street to 5th Avenue.

What happened to the couple’s American art?

“We divested ourselves of the collection to avoid competing with our clients at Kennedy Galleries,” Larry says.

But once a collector, always a collector. Deprived of their American paintings, the Fleischmans turned their attention to classical antiquities, a field that had long intrigued them. Having bought a few pieces of ancient art through the years--beginning in 1951 with a Roman bronze lamp--they began to pursue antiquities in earnest.

Piece by piece, marble statuary, bronze vessels and sculpture, terra-cotta vases, fresco panels and gold and silver jewelry found their way to the Fleischmans’ apartment. Book by book, so did an extensive library. Before long, word about the collection was out in scholarly circles. With this exhibition, the public will get the message too.

* “A Passion for Antiquities: Ancient Art From the Collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman,” J. Paul Getty Museum, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Through Jan. 15. Admission is free, but advance parking reservations are required: (310) 458-2003. * In conjunction with the exhibition, the Getty Museum will also present two ancient comedies, “The Woman From Samos” and “Casina,” Friday-next Sunday and Oct. 20-23 and 27-30, 7:30 p.m. (Oct. 20, signed for the hearing-impaired). $35 . Information: (213) 365-3500, (310) 459-7611, Ext. 255, or TDD (310) 394-7448.