Getty Villa with Penny and Tom on Monday

After a great breakfast at Back On The Beach and hanging out at the Marion Davis Guest House at the Annenberg Beach House in Santa Monica, we made our way to the Getty Museum in Malibu.

The Architectural Tour given by a great docent introduced is the Villa and the life of the Romans at their summer home on the Bay of Naples in Herculaneum.  Herculaneum and Pompeii were buried by 60 feet of mud and ash by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.  The Getty Museum was designed to replicate a villa that was excavated beginning in the 1700's.  The excavation continues today.

The docent identified the key architectural elements of large villas of the day and described the life of the rich and famous.  The property is pristine especially after a major renovation a few years ago.

The museum has an amazing collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities arranged by themes including Gods and Goddesses, Dionysus and the Theater, and Stories of the Trojan War.

A mosaic fountain in a side garden

Detail of the floor and walls of what would have been the family's dining room.  Romans dined on couches propping themselves up with their left arm.

One side of the main garden.

The villa from the main garden

Venus (Aphrodite to the Greeks) in all her charm is carved from marble found in Rome A.D. 100-200

Head of a Man made in Turkey about 1 B.C.

The garden pool may have used to keep fish on which the residence dined.  The Romans were proud of the food that they grew in their gardens and on their estates and served them to impressed visitors.

Victorious Athlete crowned with an olive wreath, Greek 200 B.C.

The Lansdowne Herakles, 125 A.D. One of J.Paul Getty's most prized possessions.  The marble statue represents the Greek hero Herakles with his lion skin and club.  It was discovered near the villa of the Roman emperor Hadrian (ruled A.D.127-138 at Tivoli, Italy

The Lion Attaching a Horse, Greek 325-300 B.C. restored in Rome in 1594
The equine torso and the feline head and foreparts are all that remain of the original work - the horse's head and both animals missing limbs and tails were restored in a smoother marble during the Renaissance.
This piece is in the atrium of the villa and covers a small pool. It is on loan from the Roma Capitole Museum.

Another view of the interior courtyard

Cycladic female figures may have represented concubines meant to accompany deceased males to their graves.....Perhaps 2700 B.C.

Youth as a Lamp Bearer, Roman, 20-10 B.C.; found in Pompeii, bronze, copper and glass.  It was discovered in 1925 in a well appointed home in Pompeii now known as the House of the Ephebe.

Another view of the interior courtyard