Art News

Getty Museum Embarks on Conservation Project of Berthouville Treasure

LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today that one of the most prominent holdings of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France’s Cabinet des Médailles in Paris, the Berthouville Treasure, has begun a three-year-long process of conservation and technical research at the Getty Villa. This rare cache of approximately 95 ancient Roman silver objects was discovered in March 1830 by a farmer plowing his field near the village of Berthouville in Normandy. An extraordinary group of luxury vessels—including bowls and pitchers, many with figural decoration, as well as two silver statuettes of the Roman god Mercury—the objects are associated with a nearby sanctuary of the god Mercury and date to the first through third centuries A.D. Four large, late antique silver missoria (plates) belonging to the Cabinet are also part of the conservation project. While undergoing conservation treatment at