Caution: Rembrandts, Handle With Care : Putting art on view at the Getty is no simple task. A double dose of masterpieces doesn’t make it any easier.

With an annual budget of more than $50 million for the purchase of artworks, the J. Paul Getty Museum adds 100 to 150 pieces to its collection each year. The arrival of yet another new acquisition might seem to be a routine occurrence, but that’s not so.

“It’s like adding a child to a large family,” says Deborah Gribbon, the museum’s associate director and chief curator. “You’ve been through the drill a lot and you love all the children you have, but there’s nothing quite like having a new one arrive.”

Especially when the “new one” turns out to be twins who share the venerable name of Rembrandt--and the unexpected sibling is bigger and more celebrated than the planned addition.

The public learned of the Getty’s latest blessed event on Feb. 1, when the museum announced its purchase of two early paintings by Rembrandt. Among a handful of major works by the 17th-Century Dutch master still in private hands, “Abduction of Europa,” a mythological landscape created in 1632, came from the estate of New York collector L.H.P. Klotz; “Daniel and Cyrus Before the Idol Bel,” a 1633 interpretation of an Old Testament story, was purchased from British collector Lord St. Germans through a London dealer.

The museum’s staff had expected “Daniel” because the Getty had agreed to purchase the small (9 1/4-inch by 11 7/8-inch) work in September and delayed a public announcement until the necessary export license was granted. But the acquisition of “Europa,” a 24 1/2-inch by 30 5/16 inch painting loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from 1983 to 1994, was a surprise to all but a tiny inner circle.

“Usually these things are known within the museum, but we adopted a code of secrecy because we had competitors and we didn’t want them to know of our interest,” said David Jaffe, the Getty’s curator of paintings, who concluded negotiations to buy the rare landscape in mid-January. Experts estimate the combined value of the two paintings at more than $30 million, although the Getty has declined to disclose the price paid for either work.

Gribbon said the double purchase has created an in-house stir, partly because “Rembrandt is such an accessible and human artist, and these are paintings with interesting narratives.” Unlike most potential acquisitions, the Rembrandts were not sent to the museum for study while their purchase was under consideration. “When these two paintings arrived, we knew that they were ours,” she says. “That added to the excitement.”

Anticipating a high degree of public interest in the Rembrandts--and knowing that the paintings would not require extensive conservation work--museum officials have decided to put them on view on Tuesday, three weeks after announcing the purchase.

That might sound like a long time just to hang a couple of paintings, but adding new works to the Getty’s collection is an enormously complicated process. In the case of the Rembrandts, curators, conservators, registrars, preparators, educators, photographers and graphic designers all have dropped what they were doing to join a frenzy of behind-the-scenes activity.

“It’s a matter of changing everyone’s priorities,” Gribbon said. “The conservators were already working on things we had scheduled for the galleries. The preparators already had their schedule for what was going to be installed and de-installed. The photographer already had a schedule for the month. That simply had to change so that we can get these paintings up.”

The action went into high gear on Jan. 30 when associate curator Dawson Carr hurried up the hill behind the museum to a little white cottage that houses the Public Information Office and handed press officer Lori Starr a draft of a proposed press release.

By the following day, they had fleshed it out and obtained official approval of the document. Late on the afternoon of Jan. 31, while reporters rushed to file their stories, Getty Museum Director John Walsh issued a memo about the Rembrandts to the museum’s staff and trustees, to department heads at the J. Paul Getty Trust, which funds the museum, and to his colleagues at other institutions.

The Getty’s telephone reservations officers braced for an onslaught. And sure enough, on Feb. 1 they received 135 more calls requesting reservations than the previous day, most of them for Tuesday or later.

*

Even as the news was ricocheting around the art world on Feb. 1, “Europa” was arriving at the museum. “Daniel” wouldn’t be flown from London until Feb. 8. Citing security concerns, the Getty declines to reveal any information regarding the transport of its artworks. But, like most museums, the Getty requires that works in transit be accompanied by couriers who are curators or other qualified staff members.

Lesser acquisitions are unpacked in freight-receiving facilities, but the Rembrandts were taken directly to the conservation laboratory and uncrated under the watchful eyes of registrars, conservators and curators.

On Feb. 9, a gaggle of Getty staff chattered excitedly as they gathered around a 3-foot by 4-foot wood crate containing “Daniel.” A hush fell over the room as preparators Rita Gomez and Al Aguilar turned the crate on its side, picked up cordless power screwdrivers and removed shiny hardware. They lifted the top of the crate to reveal a second wood box packed inside thick panels of shock-resistant blue foam and a plastic lining maintaining constant humidity and temperature for the fragile painting. Opening the inner crate, Gomez and Aguilar extracted a white foam-board box secured by brown plastic tape. Then they set the precious parcel on a large table covered with a blue quilted blanket, ripped off the tape, removed the painting in its wide black frame, carried it to a sturdy easel and clamped it in place.

A collective sigh of relief broke the tension as the curators and conservators examined the dramatic, jewel-like painting and whispered their approval.

“I’m thrilled with it,” Jaffe said. “It looks better than ever in the California sunlight.” The last time he had seen the painting was on a murky day in London, when he carried it out of Thos. Agnew & Sons gallery on Old Bond Street to take a close look in daylight.

Paintings conservator Mark Leonard pointed out a subtle, shadowy area over King Cyrus’ shoulder that had probably been retouched, but he pronounced the work’s condition “excellent.” Although he would subsequently examine “Daniel” under ultraviolet light and X-rays, he said the only treatment needed is a light spray of varnish and possible removal or reworking of the retouched area.

‘E uropa,” is in even better con dition. “From a conservator’s standpoint, this is a three-or-four-times-in-a-lifetime occurrence, where you get a picture that is in phenomenally beautiful condition,” Leonard said. “It’s just in an exceptional state, the surfaces are perfectly intact and it hasn’t suffered from past abrasions. The paint has a body and a creaminess and a fluidity to it that has not been altered by past interventions.”

Examining “Europa” under ultraviolet light, he pointed out a few minor problems and a greenish fluorescence resulting from old varnish that distorts some colors and diminishes spatial illusions. He’ll remove the varnish and make a few tiny repairs in August after the painting has made its debut. But he is not concerned about displaying the painting as is. “Gallery lighting tends to pierce through the varnish,” he said.

While Leonard ponders possible treatment of the Getty’s new treasures, his colleagues do their part to process and install the Rembrandts. Associate registrar Cory Gooch completes a preliminary condition report and logs the paintings into a collections-management data base, along with descriptive information including title, artist’s name, date, medium, size and acquisition number.

Andrea Rothe, head of the conservation department, happens to be a specialist in historic frames, so he searches for frames that might be more suitable than the ones received with the paintings.

“I spend my evenings going through frame catalogues, like other people do through Victoria’s Secret catalogues,” he said.

Finding authentic period frames for Old Master paintings is a perpetual problem because frames are frequently changed to conform to current taste, he said. Although the Rembrandts will go on view in the frames that came with them, he has high hopes of finding substitutes. In a darkened room adjacent to the conservation laboratory, photographer Lou Meluso has a sheaf of orders for slides, prints and details of the two paintings for the museum’s publications and records.

“You might think it’s just copy work, but every painting represents a whole unique set of challenges that have to be addressed,” he said. “One of the difficulties with a painting like ‘Europa’ is that the film doesn’t see the tremendous tonal range. It just can’t be reproduced, so we manipulate the tonal range by chemical means to expand the range. Because most people will see the painting in reproduction, that’s really necessary.”

In an upstairs office in a building behind the museum, senior graphics designer Tim McNeil also has his work cut out for him. Curator Carr and education director Diane Brigham have worked out the text for the Rembrandts’ labels. Producing them would appear to be a routine task, but these are a special case.

Given the importance of the paintings’ narrative content, an extra wall panel will introduce the works and laminated sheets reproducing the Old Testament story of Daniel and part of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” which chronicles the myth of the “Abduction of Europa,” will be provided in specially constructed pockets on benches in the Dutch paintings gallery.

“These are storytelling paintings,” Carr said. “We wanted to give visitors a chance to sit in the galleries and read the stories . . . to get the spirit of the text and see how Rembrandt’s genius manages to capture this in very human terms.”

Noting that museum visitors spend an average of 28 seconds looking at any one artwork, Brigham said she wants to slow their pace but also remove obstacles to enjoyment of the museum’s collection. To that end, she and the curators will provide her staff of teachers with information about the Rembrandts and Jaffe will brief security officers about the new acquisitions. “We know that on Day One, Feb. 21, our visitors are going to want to know about them,” she said.

But before that, the paintings must be installed. That will be accomplished in one day flat, on Monday while the museum is closed. A crew of preparators, headed by Bruce Metro, will wrap the paintings, transport them to Gallery 202 on well-padded dollies, attach rubber bumpers and wires to the works, hoist them onto a wall and adjust lighting.

And that is only the beginning of their day’s work. To display the Rembrandts in the most meaningful context, Jaffe and Carr have decided to move a dozen pieces. Paintings by Dou and Lievensz, currently occupying the Rembrandt wall, will displace three sketches by Rubens. The sketches will be moved to a wall holding another Rubens, which will be relocated in another gallery. A narrative work by Knupfer will be installed closer to the Rembrandts, replacing a Ter Bruggen, and so on. Something has to go to storage, and it looks like that will be Rubens’ “Samson.”

“We’ll get the preparations crew to put the paintings temporarily in those spots and see if it works. If it doesn’t, we’ve got to rethink it and reshuffle everything,” Jaffe says.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.*

* J. Paul Getty Museum, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is free, but advance parking reservations are required: (310) 458-2003.