Getty Adds Deaccessioned Objects to Online Collection Pages

The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today that it has added information to its online collection pages about objects that have been deaccessioned (removed) from Getty’s collection. This long-term project offers a comprehensive, searchable tool for anyone interested in this aspect of Getty’s collection history.

“In alignment with the Getty's mission of providing access to our art collections, the deaccession pages of our website share historical information on objects that are no longer in our collections, up to the point at which they were deaccessioned,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

The collection of the Getty Museum is reevaluated regularly to ensure it maintains the highest quality and aligns with Getty’s mission. Inclusion of deaccession information on Getty’s website also brings the Getty more closely into alignment with peer institutions and professional standards and expands the information available to scholars for provenance research. Consistent with policies of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), any funds received from selling deaccessioned works are used for the acquisition and direct care of works of art.

Curators, provenance researchers, registrars, designers, digital teams, and information specialists have spent years working on the complex task of identifying and properly cataloging these objects. Every record includes information about the artwork and its history, as well as a thumbnail image of the object if available. Documentation about the objects and their whereabouts since their deaccession is not available since Getty no longer owns the rights to the images, artwork, or related information.

Some artworks were deaccessioned before thorough digital records were created, and these will be published later as they are ready.

View the Getty Museum’s collection pages and deaccessioned objects.