Sir Joshua Reynolds’s renowned “Portrait of Mai (Omai)” (c. 1776) will go on view at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles on September 14, four years after the United Kingdom imposed a 15-month export ban to prevent its sale abroad. Ahead of its U.S. debut, the painting has also undergone extensive technical examination, offering new information about Reynolds’s methods.
In a rare arrangement, the Getty and the National Portrait Gallery acquired shared ownership of the work in 2023, with each institution contributing half of the £50 million asking price, or $61 million at the time. The agreement ensured that the celebrated portrait would remain accessible to the public through both collections.
After the nearly eight-foot-long painting arrived at the California museum in July, conservators from the Getty and the National Portrait Gallery in London began studying it with flashlights and imaging technology. Over the course of five weeks, they identified a range of pigments used by the artist and pinpointed places where he altered the composition, according to first reporting by the Los Angeles Times and confirmation by Hyperallergic.
“Initial observations and results brought to light Reynolds’ use of thick and textured paint in certain areas of the painting, showing he reworked those parts of the composition with multiple colors and layers,” a Getty spokesperson told Hyperallergic. Those sections include Mai’s head and his intricately tattooed hands.
