Research through collections
Getty’s documented work centres on religious art and collecting. She travelled with her father, Henry H. Getty, studied Buddhist and Hindu iconography and contributed objects to museum collections. Her publications include The Gods of Northern Buddhism and a study of Ganesha. Details of her personal life are less readily documented than this research.
The Gods of Northern Buddhism first appeared in 1914 and was revised in 1928. Its title credits an introduction translated from J. Deniker’s French and illustrations drawn from Henry Getty’s collection. Those credits reveal several kinds of contribution behind the volume, from the objects collected to the historical account placed around their images.
How an image acquires a name
Getty compares postures, clothing and objects held by figures, using texts and stories alongside the photographs. Captions record materials and geographical attributions that help locate an object within a particular tradition. Her revised preface acknowledges that new evidence can change an identification. Lumitheca holds a later reprint of the 1928 edition. Its numbered key to a Buddhist assembly offers one way into the book, guiding readers between a crowded image and the individual figures described in the text.
