The Getty Research Journal features the work of art historians, museum curators, and conservators around the world as part of the Getty's mission to promote critical thinking in the presentation, conservation, and interpretation of the world's artistic legacy. Articles present original research related to the Getty's collections, initiatives, and research projects.

This issue features essays on playing cards created for the education of a young Louis XIV, seventeenth-century French fashion prints, Jehan-Georges Vibert's role in developing commercial paints and pigments, anthropological dioramas by the sculptor Caspar Mayer, glassmaker Emile Galle's relationship with the Revue des arts decoratifs, Umberto Boccioni's early research into painting materials and techniques, the postwar market for Boccioni sculptures, letterhead designs collected by Jan Tschichold, an unfinished animated film by Hans Richter after designs by Kazimir Malevich, and the Finnish architectural magazine Le carre bleu.

Shorter texts include notices on the Italian explorer Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri's description of Persepolis, the massive print collection assembled by Jean-Louis Soulavie, competing techniques for documenting Mexican archaeology in the nineteenth century, correspondence between David Croal Thomson and Edward Poynter on the attribution of Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks, and the Getty Research Institute's collection of Brazilian cordel literature.