LOS ANGELES, CA.- Highlighting Italy’s rich cultural heritage, the J. Paul Getty Museum is celebrating the 150th anniversary of Italian unification with the Italian Showcase, a presentation of objects from its permanent collection that draws visitors’ attention to the many fine examples of Italian art on view at both the Getty Center and Getty Villa.

The Getty Museum joins other U.S. cultural institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and, here in Southern California, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and Norton Simon Museum, that are participating in this celebration of Italian cultural heritage at the invitation of the Italian Embassy in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles’ Italian Consul General.

“Our participation in this special celebration underscores the longstanding and fruitful relationship we have with our colleagues in Italy,” says David Bomford, acting director for the J. Paul Getty Museum. “In partnership with Italy, we have made significant contributions to art scholarship, resulting in a number of important exhibitions, conservation projects, scholarly research, and publications.”

At the Getty Center, visitors will encounter special labels next to paintings by Fra Bartolomeo, Titian, and Tiepolo and sculptures by Bernini, Cipriani, and Canova noting that they are part of an “Italian Showcase.”

At the Getty Villa—itself a recreation of a first-century Roman Villa—visitors will find ancient Roman masterpieces such as the Lansdowne Herakles. In addition to objects from the permanent collection, the Italian Showcase at the Villa takes visitors to two important objects currently on loan from the the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples: Statue of an Ephebe (Youth) as a Lamp Bearer, which is currently on view in the Basilica at the Getty Villa and the Apollo Saettante, which is part of the special six-month exhibition Apollo from Pompeii: Investigating an Ancient Bronze. On view through September 12, 2011, the presentation marks the statue’s first display in the United States after an eighteen-month study and conservation project.