Morgan Library & Museum

Completed in 1906 as the private library of the banker J. P. Morgan, the institution has more than 350,000 objects. As of 2024^[update], the museum is directed by Colin B. Bailey and governed by a board of trustees.

Morgan Library & Museum

The main building
Interactive fullscreen map
Former name	Pierpont Morgan Library
Established	1906 (1906) (private library) March 28, 1924 (1924-03-28) (public institution)
Location	225 Madison Avenue (at East 36th Street), Manhattan, New York City
Coordinates	40°44′57″N 73°58′53″W / 40.74917°N 73.98139°W / 40.74917; -73.98139
Type	Museum and research library
Collection size	350,000
Visitors	274,000 (fiscal year 2019)
Founder	J. P. Morgan
Director	Colin B. Bailey
Architect	Charles Follen McKim (main building) Benjamin Wistar Morris (main building annex) Isaac Newton Phelps (231 Madison Avenue) Renzo Piano and Beyer Blinder Belle (expansion)
Public transit access	Subway: ​​​​​ at Grand Central–42nd Street ​ at 33rd Street Bus: M1, M2, M3, M4, M34 SBS, M34A SBS, M42, Q32
Website	themorgan.org
J. Pierpont Morgan Library
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
New York State Register of Historic Places
New York City Landmark No. 0239, 1119, 2114
Location	225 Madison Avenue at East 36th Street Manhattan, New York City
Built	1900–1906
Architect	Charles Follen McKim
Architectural style	Palladian
NRHP reference No.	66000544
NYSRHP No.	06101.000434
NYCL No.	0239, 1119, 2114
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	November 13, 1966
Designated NHL	November 13, 1966
Designated NYSRHP	June 23, 1980
Designated NYCL	May 17, 1966 (main building exterior) March 23, 1982 (main building interior) February 26, 2002 (231 Madison Avenue exterior)

The site was formerly occupied by several residences of the Phelps family, one of which J. P. Morgan had purchased in 1880. The main library building was constructed between 1902 and 1906 for $1.2 million. The library was made a public institution in 1924 by J. P. Morgan's son John Pierpont Morgan Jr., in accordance with his father's will, and Morris's annex was constructed in 1928. Further expansions were completed in 1962 and 1991. The Pierpont Morgan Library was renovated in 2006 and renamed the Morgan Library & Museum, and it was renovated again in 2022.

The Morgan Library & Museum is composed of several structures. The main building was designed by Charles McKim of the firm of McKim, Mead and White, with an annex designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris. A 19th-century Italianate brownstone house at 231 Madison Avenue, built by Isaac Newton Phelps, is also part of the grounds. The complex includes three additional structures, including a glass entrance building designed by Renzo Piano and Beyer Blinder Belle. The main building and its interior is a New York City designated landmark and a National Historic Landmark, while the house at 231 Madison Avenue is a designated city landmark.

The Morgan Library and Museum contains illuminated manuscripts, authors' original manuscripts, and a musical manuscript collection. The Morgan contains a large collection of incunabula, prints, and drawings of European artists, as well as many examples of fine bookbinding. The collection still includes some Old Master paintings collected by Morgan. In addition to its permanent collection, the museum has hosted temporary exhibitions, as well as events such as concerts and lectures. Commentary of both the collection and the buildings over the years has been largely positive.

Background

Phelps Stokes/Dodge houses

In the second half of the 19th century, the Morgan Library & Museum's site was occupied by four brownstone houses on the east side of Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th Street to the north. The houses were all built in 1852 or 1853 by members of the Phelps Stokes/Dodge family. Three houses were built along Madison Avenue on lots measuring 65 feet (20 m) wide by 157 feet (48 m) deep, while a fourth house to the east measured 18 feet (5.5 m) wide and stretched 197.5 feet (60.2 m) between 37th and 36th Streets. All the houses were designed in an Italianate style with pink brownstone. The Madison Avenue houses, from north to south, were owned by Isaac Newton Phelps, William E. Dodge, and John Jay Phelps, while the 37th Street house was owned by George D. Phelps. The houses were separated from each other by gardens. The surrounding neighborhood of Murray Hill was not yet developed at the time, but began to grow after the American Civil War.

 

Isaac Newton Phelps's daughter Helen married Anson Phelps Stokes in 1865. Their son, architect Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, was born in the Isaac Newton Phelps house at 231 Madison Avenue two years later. Helen Phelps inherited the house following her father's death. In 1888, she doubled the size of her house and added an attic to plans by architect R. H. Robertson.

The banker John Pierpont Morgan, who lived at 6 East 40th Street in the 1870s, was looking to buy his own house by 1880. He wished to live in Murray Hill, where many of his and his wife's friends and business contacts lived. Morgan sought to buy John Jay Phelps's house at 219 Madison Avenue, at the corner with 36th Street, which was offered for $225,000. He acquired the house in 1880 and renovated it over the following two years, moving there in 1882. The exterior design was largely retained, but the interior was extensively renovated by the Herter Brothers.

Morgan collection

Morgan had collected handwriting samples as early as the 1850s, and he also acquired pictures and stained glass pieces throughout the years. In the late 19th century, Morgan became one of the most influential financiers in the United States. As his wealth grew, Morgan amassed a collection of fine art, inspired by the collection of his father Junius Spencer Morgan, and he also began collecting rare books and other bindings at his nephew Junius's suggestion. The fine art was subject to import taxes and was stored in England; since books were not subject to import taxes, they were stored in the basement of his New York residence. J. P. Morgan's collection included 160 titles by 1883.

The collection grew quickly after his father died in 1890. Morgan began acquiring historically important manuscripts after his father obtained Walter Scott's original manuscript of the book Guy Mannering. From 1899 to 1902 alone, he took over three collectors' libraries, which included hundreds of illuminated manuscripts, prints, and other manuscripts. Morgan also acquired smaller collections, such as French literature, medieval chivalry, and American manuscript collections. Morgan may have collected these objects exclusively for pleasure.

Development of library

By 1900, Morgan's collection took up more space than was available in his residence, and his son-in-law described the basement as being packed with piles of objects. Morgan was unable to expand the house due to the presence of an 18-foot-wide (5.5 m) driveway east of it. While part of Morgan's collection was stored in the basement of his house, other items were loaned to institutions or placed in storage.

Site acquisition

In 1900, the plots north and east of J. P. Morgan's house were placed for sale after the death of Melissa Stokes Dodge, who lived in the Dodge mansion just north of Morgan's house. That January, he bought a 75-by-100-foot (23 by 30 m) plot of land on 36th Street, for a library. The site had been occupied by two brownstone homes at 35 and 37 East 36th Street, which Morgan promptly razed. In 1902, Morgan acquired two more lots on 66th Street with a total frontage of 50 feet (15 m). On the far eastern side of that plot, McKim, Mead & White designed a six-story house at 33 East 36th Street for Morgan's daughter Louisa and her husband Herbert Satterlee. The Satterlees' house was made of limestone, as contrasted with the brownstones on Madison Avenue, and was connected to Morgan's own home by tunnels. The Satterlee residence measured 28 feet (8.5 m) wide, and Morgan used the 135-foot-wide (41 m) plot between his house and the Satterlees' home for his new library.

Morgan acquired William E. Dodge's home in April 1903. While the Satterlee house was under construction, the couple moved into the Dodge mansion. By late 1904, Morgan had also purchased the old Isaac Newton Stokes house at 229 Madison Avenue for his son J. P. Morgan Jr., who was known as "Jack". Jack initially lived nearby at 22 Park Avenue. When Jack and his wife Jane Norton Grew moved into 229 Madison Avenue in 1905, he commissioned a major renovation of the interior and renumbered it as 231 Madison Avenue. Jack Morgan also performed $1,900 in changes to the house's exterior. J. P. Morgan came to own two-thirds of the city block; his holdings by 1907 included the whole 197.5-foot (60.2 m) frontage on Madison Avenue, stretching 300 feet (91 m) on 36th Street and 167 feet (51 m) on 37th Street.

Construction

 

Morgan first hired Warren and Wetmore to design a Baroque-style library, which would have had a heavily decorated upper section. Whitney Warren of Warren and Wetmore had then just completed the elaborately decorated New York Yacht Club Building, and Warren had wanted to design a domed structure. Morgan's preference for an austere structure may have led him to reject Warren and Wetmore. He instead hired Charles McKim of McKim, Mead & White to design the library in 1902. C. T. Wills was hired as the builder. The library was to be a classical marble structure with a simple design; Morgan had told McKim that "I want a gem". McKim's designs were traditional for their time, while those who wanted more fashionable designs typically hired McKim's partner Stanford White.

At the time of the library's planning, restrictive covenants in Murray Hill prohibited the construction of museums there, but the library was originally not planned as a museum. While McKim was responsible for the overall design, Morgan had final say over the aspects of the plan. An initial proposal called for a projecting central mass flanked by recessed wings, which Morgan deemed unwieldy. The second version of the plan reduced the size of the central mass and added a recessed entrance. Morgan also rejected a proposal for a Greek temple–like structure topped by a portico. The final designs called for the central section and wings to be the same distance from the street. Morgan insisted the library be made of marble, even though his whole family except for his daughter Louisa lived in a brownstone house. Morgan originally planned to use white marble, but a neighbor told him that white marble might give the impression that the building was a mausoleum. This led Morgan to use pinkish-gray Tennessee marble instead.

By early 1903, workers were laying the foundation for the library. Construction began that April, and the library was being dubbed as "Mr. Morgan's jewel case" by the next year. Few details of the library were given out during construction, as Morgan prohibited the workers from talking to the press. The Wall Street Journal reported in June 1906, when the library was near completion, that Morgan had "wanted the most perfect structure that human hands could erect and was willing to pay whatever it cost". For example, the usage of dry masonry marble blocks, an uncommon construction method that eliminated the need for joints made of mortar, added $50,000 to the cost of construction. McKim had suggested the dry masonry blocks to Morgan after having unsuccessfully tried to place a knife blade in the joints of Athens's Erechtheion. Morgan readily agreed to pay the extra cost, and McKim ordered a plaster cast of the blocks from a former employee who worked in Athens. The dry-masonry blocks had to be adapted to fit New York City's climate, and so tinfoil sheeting was placed between the blocks.

Morgan was impressed with the quality of the work, as McKim recalled in a February 1906 letter to White. Even so, Morgan often upheld the library as an accomplishment of McKim's. This was because McKim was not only responsible for selecting the marble from Rome but also for hiring the library's decorators and craftsmen. The final design was more representative of the work of William M. Kendall from McKim, Mead & White. Morgan acquired two hundred cases of books, which were temporarily stored in the Lenox Library and moved to Morgan's personal library starting in December 1905. Around the same time, Morgan hired Belle da Costa Greene as his personal librarian. Toward the library's completion, Morgan reportedly requested that the entire library be lowered by one foot.

Private library

Opening and early years

Morgan first used his office in November 1906 with a reception for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's purchasing committee. The decorative details were not completed until January 1907, and the collection was relocated into the library later that year. Morgan's library had cost $1.2 million (equivalent to $30.504 million in 2023). During the Panic of 1907, the city's bank presidents and trust company presidents were locked in the library overnight until they agreed on a plan to stop the financial crisis. To allow people to see his new library from Madison Avenue, Morgan demolished the Dodge house in 1907–1908 and replaced it with a garden designed by Beatrix Farrand.

As the librarian, Greene was tasked with expanding the collection, as well as cataloging and researching the history of each item. She frequently searched for rare volumes in back alleys, but she initially tended to avoid auctions and rarely spent more than $10,000 a book without the Morgans' permission. Greene tended to acquire items created before the 16th century, since Morgan believed that other libraries were able to adequately care for newer items. Morgan also decided to import the rest of his collection and display it at his library. To avoid paying import taxes, he was required to open the library to the public on certain days of the week. Morgan sometimes acquired art at short notice—in one case, he bought a Vermeer painting minutes after learning about the artist—but he was careful about all of his acquisitions. Morgan also refused to buy works that he believed were too expensive.

In the library's private office, Morgan frequently met with British and French bankers. Among Morgan's larger acquisitions in the late 1900s and early 1910s was a collection of rare American authors' manuscripts from merchant S. H. Wakeman in 1909. The Wall Street Journal wrote in 1911 that "Mr. Morgan buys books as some financiers buy a thousand shares of stock"; in some years, he spent half his income on the collection. Acquisitions continued until his death in March 1913.

After J. P. Morgan's death

 

When Morgan died, his estate was valued at $128 million (about $2.904 billion in 2023), over half of which lay in the worth of his collection. J. P. Morgan bequeathed all except one piece in the collection to the library, with the request that Jack make the collection "permanently available for the instruction and pleasure of the American people". The month after J. P. Morgan's death, the New York state legislature granted a two-year exemption enabling Jack to import his father's overseas collection without having to pay import duties. Jack did not publicly show interest in his father's art collection and reportedly did not expand it in the year after his father died. Jack sold off much of the overseas collection rather than importing it, but he decided to keep the items that were already in his father's library. During 1914, the collection was displayed in full at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the only time the whole collection was displayed.

The import duty exemption expired in April 1915, and Jack sold various items in the collection to pay the inheritance taxes and to raise money for the cash bequests in his father's will. The next year, the collection was valued at $7.5 million for taxation purposes. Jack and Jane Morgan continued to employ Greene as the librarian, adding items that personally interested them. Frances Morgan, Jack's mother and John Pierpont's widow, lived at J. P. Morgan's old residence until her death in November 1924. By then, despite Jack's opposition, the surrounding stretch of Madison Avenue was being redeveloped as a business street. Although Jane Morgan died in 1925, Jack continued to live at 231 Madison Avenue until his death in 1943, and the Satterlee home remained in the Morgan family until 1944. The United Lutheran Church in America bought 231 Madison Avenue for its headquarters in 1943 and built a five-story annex there in 1957. It was the only remaining brownstone house along the Murray Hill section of Madison Avenue by the 1960s.

Public institution

1920s to 1940s

 

The Pierpont Morgan Library was incorporated as a public institution in March 1924, a month after Jack Morgan announced that he would transfer the collection to a board of trustees and provide a $1.5 million endowment for the library. The Morgans transferred the library building, and the land under 219 Madison Avenue, to the Pierpont Morgan Library. Greene was retained as the librarian. The Morgan Library was not a public library and initially only allowed researchers into the space; as Jack Morgan said, "one soiled thumb could undo the work of 900 years". Only ten scholars could initially enter the building at once. The library's collection continued to grow, with emphasis placed on rare items; for example, though only four items were acquired in 1926, all of these were unique manuscripts.

To accommodate additional scholars, the Morgan Library announced plans for an annex in January 1927. Though Jack initially denied that 219 Madison Avenue would be demolished, that house was ultimately razed. Benjamin Wistar Morris was hired to design the annex, while Marc Eidlitz & Son was hired to build it. The annex was completed in 1928. The Morgan Library continued to expand its collections; for instance, between 1936 and 1940, it acquired twelve manuscripts and dozens of drawings. In the 25 years after it became a public institution, the Morgan Library acquired 200 total manuscripts, 83 books, and hundreds of autograph letters and papers.

Through the early 1940s, the Morgan Library continued to limit access only to researchers, prompting city officials to request that the library's tax-exempt status be removed because it was not a public library. In December 1942, Morgan Library officials agreed to open the library to the general public, and city officials agreed not to fight the library's tax-exempt status. Many of the library's most valuable artifacts were transported to other locations in the U.S. in 1942 to protect them from possible World War II airstrikes; the objects were returned to the library in December 1944. The Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library was formed in 1949 to raise funds for the collections and distribute funds to scholars and publications. After Belle da Costa Greene retired from the library in 1948, Frederick Baldwin Adams Jr. was appointed as the Morgan's second director.

1950s to mid-1980s

 

The Pierpont Morgan Library started to host concerts and tours during the 1950s, and it also acquired items such as a collection of 1,375 letters from a British dealer. Officials began raising $3 million for an expansion of the library in 1959; the money was to fund modifications to the annex and a new lecture hall, as well as artifact purchases and new programs. By that November, the library had raised $550,000. In 1960, the main library and its annex were connected by a cloister structure. During the renovation, the operating hours of the east room and west room were expanded from three to six days a week. The renovation, designed by J. P. Morgan's nephew Alexander P. Morgan, was completed in 1962 and included office space, a gallery, and meeting space. In total, the renovation cost $1.4 million. By the early 1960s, the museum was open six days a week (five days during the summer), and it charged no admission fee. Access to parts of the collection was limited to authorized researchers.

Adams retired as the Morgan's director in 1969 and was succeeded by Charles Ryskamp. During Ryskamp's 17-year tenure, the $11 million endowment was expanded to $38 million. By the early 1970s, the Morgan Library had several hundred "fellows", and Ryskamp wanted to attract more visitors to the library. The Morgan Library constructed a five-story, 26-by-30-foot (7.9 by 9.1 m) expansion beginning in 1975. Designed by Platt, Wyckoff & Coles, the addition included storage vaults and offices.

The library continued to acquire other collections in the 1970s and 1980s, including the musical manuscript collection of Mary Flagler Cary; 1,500 Italian drawings from János Scholz; Dannie Heineman's collection of letters, books, and newspaper clippings; part of Robin Lehman's music manuscript collection; and 75 rare manuscripts from William S. Glazier. Ryskamp also arranged various temporary exhibitions. During the 1980s, the library raised $1.5 million each year for its operating budget, in addition to funding for repairs. The institution received a $1 million grant for the preservation of its printed books (the largest donation it had ever received at the time) and a $600,000 matching grant for its conservation department in 1981.

1980s and 1990s expansion

 

Ryskamp resigned as director in 1986 and was replaced the next year by Charles Eliot Pierce Jr. In 1988, the Pierpont Morgan Library bought 231 Madison Avenue from the Lutheran Church for $15 million. The library planned to spend $5 million restoring the house, and it also announced that it would raise $40 million for a capital campaign. The original buildings could display only one percent of the total collection at once, and the entire exhibition space consisted of two rooms and a corridor.

In 1989, the firm of Voorsanger and Mills designed a glass conservatory connecting 231 Madison Avenue and the main building's annex. The conservatory would expand the library's space to 45,000 square feet (4,200 m²), add a walled terrace on Madison Avenue, and make the structures wheelchair-accessible. Because the original building was a city landmark, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) had to approve the plans. An early plan called for converting 231 Madison Avenue to exhibition galleries, but the house's internal structure made this impossible, so 231 Madison Avenue became offices and a bookstore. The library's artworks were also extensively cleaned, display cases were added to the original East Library, and the West Study was opened to the public. The expansion was finished in October 1991. The project was originally planned to cost $9–10 million but ultimately cost $15 million.

The Morgan had finished raising $40 million by November 1992. The Morgan opened a drawing center on the second floor of the annex, designed by Beyer Blinder Belle, in 1999. The same year, the Morgan received $10 million from Eugene V. Thaw and Clare E. Thaw; these funds were used to establish the Thaw Conservation Center in 2002. The museum's acquisitions in the 1990s included part of Alice Tully's art collection, Carter Burden's collection of over 30,000 American literary volumes, and Pierre Matisse's collection of 2,000 letters from artists.

2000s expansion

By 2001, there were plans to expand the Pierpont Morgan Library. The library presented preliminary plans to the LPC in 2002 for a new structure on the conservatory site, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano and Beyer Blinder Belle. In 2003, the Pierpont Morgan Library's buildings were closed for construction and expansion. Charles Pierce said later: "We had a lecture hall, not a concert hall; a reading room that owed more to 1928 instead of 2006." All of the post-1928 annexes were demolished to make way for the expansion. Workers excavated nearly 50,000 short tons (45,000 long tons; 45,000 t) of bedrock to make way for the expansion. In the meantime, the library sponsored numerous traveling exhibitions around the country. The project cost $106 million in total.

The library reopened on April 29, 2006, and was renamed the Morgan Library & Museum. The private office and vault of J. P. Morgan was also opened to the public. Pierce retired as the museum's director in early 2007, saying that some of the Morgan's members had come out against some of the changes to the museum. William M. Griswold was hired as the museum's next director that April, during which he oversaw the growth of its collections, exhibition programs, and curatorial departments.

2010s to present

A restoration of the main building's interior spaces was completed in 2010. The Morgan established a photography department in 2012. Griswold resigned as the Morgan's director in 2014, and Colin Bailey was appointed as the director of the Morgan Library and Museum the next year.

The Morgan Library & Museum announced a four-year restoration of the main building's facade in February 2019. As part of the project, the landscape designer Todd Longstaffe-Gowan designed a garden surrounding the original library building. The LPC had initially expressed opposition to the construction of the garden, as there had not been a garden around the original Morgan Library. The agency approved the project after reviewing letters and other correspondences from J. P. Morgan, who had indicated that he had indeed wanted a garden around the library. In addition, Integrated Conservation Resources restored the main building. The museum was temporarily closed from March to September 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The renovation cost $13 million in total and was completed in 2022.

The Morgan Library & Museum celebrated its 100th anniversary as a public institution in 2024. To celebrate its centennial, the museum began raising $50 million in 2023, including $35 million for its endowment and $15 million for capital improvements. The heiress Katharine Rayner donated $10 million to endow the director's position, which was renamed in her honor in early 2024, and the Jerome L. Greene Foundation donated another $5 million.

Among the works in Morgan's original collection were porcelains, triptychs, books, and manuscripts. The collection of the Morgan Library & Museum contained more than 350,000 objects by the early 21st century. One late-20th-century reporter described the collection as including a variety of "almost random treasures".

Manuscripts

 

The Morgan Library and Museum has long contained a collection of illuminated manuscripts, which date from the sixth to sixteenth centuries. As early as 1923, the Morgan Library counted 560 illuminated manuscripts in its collection, a number that had grown to over 1,100 by the 21st century. Among the manuscripts are the Morgan Bible, Morgan Beatus, Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Farnese Hours, Morgan Black Hours, and Codex Glazier, as well as an Anglo-Saxon Gospels manuscript.

The manuscript collection also contains authors' original manuscripts, many of them autographed. The library's early acquisitions included a Charles Dickens manuscript of A Christmas Carol; a J. M. Barrie manuscript; and original drawings for The Pickwick Papers and the Book of Job. The collection also includes manuscripts of poems by Robert Burns; nine of Walter Scott's novels; Alexander Pope's poem An Essay on Man; John Keats's poem Endymion; Francis Bacon's book Novum Organum, Edgar Allan Poe's short story "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains"; and Ernest Hemingway's short story "Three Stories and Ten Poems". Notebooks and journals in the collection include those of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. There are also writings from Émile Zola, Victor Hugo, Marie Antoinette, George Sand, Alexandre Dumas, Thomas Moore, and Honoré de Balzac. Other documents in the Morgan's collection are a collection of 64 Central European manuscripts and one of about two dozen original prints of the United States Declaration of Independence.

There are many letters in the collection, some dating as far back as ancient Babylonian times. The Morgan holds original letters by Napoleon, Horace Walpole, Voltaire, Francesco Filelfo, and George Beaumont. There is also a rare 1516 letter from Andrea Corsali with the first description of the Southern Cross.

The Morgan Library and Museum also houses a sizable musical manuscript collection. These include autographed and annotated libretti and scores from Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Luigi Cherubini, Frédéric Chopin, Charles Gounod, George Frideric Handel, Joseph Haydn, Gustav Mahler, Gioachino Rossini, and Giuseppe Verdi. Notable specific pieces include two sets of Franz Schubert's Impromptus manuscripts, Andrea Antico's Motetti e Canzone and Mozart's Haffner Symphony in D Major. The collection also contains the scraps of paper on which Bob Dylan jotted down "Blowin' in the Wind" and "It Ain't Me Babe". It includes several pieces of Victoriana, including one of the most important collections of Gilbert and Sullivan manuscripts and related artifacts.

Books

 

The collection includes early printed Bibles and other religious works, among them three Gutenberg Bibles, one of six original copies of the first Italian Bible, one of three known copies of the Constance Missal, a rare copy of the Mainz Psalter, and the Golden Gospels of Henry III. The Morgan also contains material from ancient Egypt and medieval liturgical objects (including Coptic literature examples); William Blake's original drawings for his edition of the Book of Job; and concept drawings for The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The Morgan has a collection of ancient Near Eastern cylinder seals: small stone cylinders finely engraved with images for transfer to clay by rolling.

The Morgan contains various examples of Latin and Greek literary classics, along with more modern American and European printed books. The collection includes numerous examples of fine bookbinding. These include various bindings of Coptic manuscripts from the 9th and 10th centuries, the metalwork covers of the Lindau Gospels, copies of books by early British printer William Caxton, and a binding made for Christina, Queen of Sweden.

There are also children's books, such as a book with the first known printing of the rhyme "This Is the House That Jack Built", as well as first editions or proofread versions of Struwwelpeter, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Max and Moritz.

Visual art

The Morgan contains a large collection of incunabula, prints, and drawings. The collection includes some Old Master paintings collected by Morgan. The Old Master paintings include works by Hans Memling, Perugino, and Cima da Conegliano. Other notable artists of the Morgan Library and Museum include Jean de Brunhoff, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, John Leech, Gaston Phoebus, Rembrandt van Rijn, and John Ruskin. The artwork includes 16th- and 17th-century Italian works, as well as objects like wedding portraits.

The Morgan's collection includes drawings and watercolors, such as twelve William Blake watercolors, the drawing Bathers by Renoir, eight Rembrandt etchings, and 54 drawings by Eugène Delacroix. The Morgan also holds a set of miniature Rajput paintings. The collection includes numerous drawings from 13th-to-19th-century French masters such as Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Jacques-Louis David, and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.

Some Old Master works have been sold off over the years. For example, the Morgan sold Domenico Ghirlandaio's masterpiece Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni to Heinrich Thyssen in 1938. Historically, the Morgan has also displayed items on loan, including a bronze angel that was displayed there for years before being sold to the Frick Collection in 1945, following Jack Morgan's death.

Other objects

Before J. P. Morgan died, he had acquired a variety of decorations such as a Persian carpet, Genoese and Chinese vases, and an Egyptian carved-stone group. The Washington Post reported in 1914 that the collections included "tapestries, bronzes and silver, Greek antiques, jeweled miniatures, porcelains, ancient jewelry, and wonderful books and manuscripts". Among these were royal jewels, 70 pieces of old German silver, 64 miniatures, a set of 15th-century marble and bronze objects, Chinese porcelain, and watches. Morgan also kept various "knickknacks" such as a four-thousand-year-old Babylonian figure found near Pompeii.

A Los Angeles Times article from 1966 described the library as having bronze, porcelain, gold, and enamel works. These include a silver-gilt figure of Le Roi de Bourges, and the 12th-century Stavelot Triptych. Other notable objects include stage and costume designs from the collection of Donald Oenslager and a map of the Palestine region from around 1300. The library has sold off other parts of its collection over the years, including Renaissance-era bronze medals.

Restitution claims

Over the years, there have been several restitution claims regarding alleged stolen artwork in the Morgan's collection. In 2019, an Italian prosecutor claimed that the museum hosted a sacramentary that was stolen in 1925 from the municipality of Apiro. In 2023, the Morgan and several other institutions gave up seven works by Egon Schiele after the New York County District Attorney determined that the works had been looted from the collection of Fritz Grünbaum, who was murdered in the Holocaust.

Various events and programs are also hosted at the Morgan, such as concerts, films, and lectures. Since the 1950s, the museum has hosted concerts and tours. Concerts and recitals take place in Gilder Lehrman Hall. In addition, guided tours of the permanent collection are hosted each afternoon except Monday.

In the mid-20th century, the Morgan's annual exhibits included showcases of recent acquisitions and rare books. Temporary exhibitions were staged in the annex buildings, while the main building was reserved for Morgan's main collection. Until the Morgan Library's expansion was completed in 1991, the institution had so little space that some of the objects in the permanent collection had to be hidden from view whenever there was a temporary exhibition. In 2024, the Morgan began creating a video series about the collection's impact on contemporary creative figures, such as writers and artists.

Main building

The main building (also known as the McKim Building), constructed between 1902 and 1906 as the original structure in the complex, was designed in the Classical Revival style by Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White. The original building occupies a lot of 117 by 50 feet (36 by 15 m) and was intended to be built in a similar scale to contemporary New York Public Library branches. The center of the original structure contained an extension measuring 73.5 feet (22.4 m) long, which gave the structure a "T" shape; this small wing was intended to connect to a similar structure along 37th Street. The original library building is placed behind a solid-bronze fence with hand-twisted bars.

Facade

 

The building has a facade of Tennessee marble, behind which is an air gap and an interior brick wall. McKim took his inspiration from the Villa Giulia, particularly the attic of its Nymphaeum. Further inspiration came from the 16th-century Villa Medici in Rome. The exterior walls are made of dry masonry, which allowed the marble blocks to be set evenly, thus requiring a minimal amount of mortar. Tinfoil sheeting was placed between the blocks to prevent moisture buildup; the tinfoil sheeting measures 1⁄64 inch (0.40 mm) thick and is laid between the horizontal joints. Charles T. Wills was responsible for the dry masonry construction. The Wall Street Journal reported upon the library's completion, "No other building in Europe or America was ever erected with this care."

The main entrance is a Palladian arch at the center of the 36th Street facade. It is composed of an arched opening 14 feet (4.3 m) wide, flanked by two openings under flat lintels, each of which is 9 feet (2.7 m) wide. There are two recessed niches on that facade, one on each side of the entrance. Surrounding the library is a garden, which covers 5,000 square feet (460 m²) and contains artifacts from J. P. Morgan's collection. The garden also contains pathways embedded with pebbles, which Sicilian craftsman Orazio Porto laid manually.

The central archway contains a portico with a groin vaulted ceiling, supported by two Ionic columns on each side. A flight of steps, leading to the main entrance, is flanked by two lionesses sculpted by Edward Clark Potter, who would later create the two lions that guard the New York Public Library Main Branch. Above the entranceway are allegorical roundels and panels, which was originally given to Andrew O'Connor and then reassigned to Adolph Weinman after O'Connor could not complete his contract. These panels depict tragic and lyric poetry. The portico has a geometric mosaic tile floor with marble. Inside the portico is a 16th-century pair of bronze doors, imported from Florence and made in the style of Lorenzo Ghiberti's doors at the Florence Baptistery. Each door contains five carved bronze panels, which depict allegorical scenes. The 36th Street facade contains six Doric style pilasters flanking the main entrance.

Interior

The interior of the main library building is richly decorated, with a polychrome rotunda. It leads to three public rooms: Morgan's private study to the west, the librarian's office to the north, and the original library to the east. Each of the three rooms had dozens of bookcase doors. As a fireproofing measure, almost nothing in the library was made of wood, except for the bookcases' frames and a few doors. The bookcases had glass shelves and were covered with steel grilles. Morgan also had a steel vault where he kept his most valuable manuscripts, such as about 600 Renaissance and medieval manuscripts. There were asbestos shutters that could seal off the building's windows if necessary.

The rotunda has a ceiling with murals and plasterwork inspired by Raphael, created by H. Siddons Mowbray. On the north side of the ceiling is a half-dome with ten relief panels in a blue-and-white color scheme. The lunette panels on the west, east, and south sides of the ceiling, measuring 23 feet (7.0 m) high, allude to material in Morgan's collection. There is also a central dome, which contains roundels and rectangular panels with various figures or motifs, as well as an octagonal central skylight. The rotunda floor is clad with multicolored marble, patterned after the floor of the Villa Pia in Vatican City, and features a porphyry centerpiece. The walls contain mosaic baseboards and are separated into panels with vertical pilasters, topped by Composite style pilasters. When the library first opened, the rotunda was furnished with two 15th-century chairs and a bronze bust by Benvenuto Cellini. The doorways to the rooms on the east and west are made of white marble, topped by marble entablatures and flanked by green marble columns. To the north or rear was a librarian's room.

There are two exhibition rooms. The East Library features triple-tiered bookcases, the upper tiers of which could only be accessed by balconies. The bookcases were lined with asbestos and encased in glass. On the east wall of the East Library is a fireplace with a tapestry showing the "Triumph of Avarice". The fireplace itself dates from the 15th century and was imported from Italy. Mowbray designed eighteen lunettes and spandrels atop each wall, modeled after the work of Pinturicchio. The figures in the lunettes alternate between allegorical female muses and notable artists, explorers, or teachers. Zodiac symbols are placed on the spandrels, as the signs of the zodiac were particularly important to J. P. Morgan. Particularly prominent are the zodiac signs over the entrance: Aries corresponds to J. P. Morgan's birth on April 17, 1837, and Gemini corresponds to his marriage to Frances Louisa Tracy on May 31, 1865. Two additional spandrels contain allegorical motifs that depict changing seasons. The East Library had three levels of shelves and is the largest room in the main library wing.

Morgan's study, now the West Library, was described by historian Wayne Andrews as "one of the greatest achievements of American interior decoration". The design of the study reflected Morgan's tastes; as his son-in-law Herbert Satterlee said, "No one could really know Mr. Morgan at all unless he had seen him in the West Room." The West Library contains low wooden bookshelves as well as a fireplace with a marble mantelpiece. The decorative elements include stained glass panels in the study's windows, as well as a wall covering of red damask. The current damask covering, a replica by Scalamandré, is a copy of a pattern that was displayed at Rome's Chigi Palace. The coffered ceiling was reportedly purchased in Italian cardinal's palace. The artist James Wall Finn painted coats-of-arms onto the ceiling based on Italian bookplates from Morgan's collection. Finn's work was designed in such an authentic manner that it was frequently mistaken as part of the ceiling's original design.

Madison Avenue and 36th Street annex

The corner of Madison Avenue and 36th Street contains a two-story Italianate style structure designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris, with space for offices, exhibitions, and a research library. The annex, made of the same Tennessee marble as the original, was completed in 1928. It measures 90.67 by 60.5 feet (28 by 18 m), with a later 26-by-30-foot (7.9 by 9.1 m) addition. The annex is accessed by a 22-foot-wide (6.7 m) stair facing 36th Street. The annex has some architectural details differing from that of the original structure: in particular, the decoration is simpler. The Morris annex was a bookstore until 1991, when it became gallery space.

231 Madison Avenue

 

Also part of the library grounds is 231 Madison Avenue, an Italianate brownstone house on the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and East 37th Street, which was the home of Isaac Newton Phelps and later J. P. "Jack" Morgan Jr. The house contains the Morgan Shop on its northern side, facing 37th Street, and the Morgan Dining Room on its southern side. The house is set behind a barricade composed of a wrought-iron fence atop a brownstone ledge. The house was originally three stories tall and faced with pink stone, but after R. H. Robertson's renovation of 1888, became four stories tall with a raised basement. An office annex to the east, built in 1957, was originally faced with brick. Before the Morgan acquired it in 1988, it was a headquarters of the Lutheran Church.

Facade

The Madison Avenue facade is divided vertically into three bays. An entrance stoop with a balustrade leads up to a central portico with two Corinthian columns. On either side of the entrance doorway are rectangular sash windows, containing large sills with wrought-iron balustrades. The second and third stories each have three rectangular, multi-pane windows with sills atop console brackets. A cornice runs above the third story. The attic contains small Ionic colonettes, as well as rounded pediments atop two of the bays.

Along 37th Street, the water table containing the raised basement is topped by a molding. The original 1853 house to the west and the 1888 extension to the east are divided by a pier. The original section of the house is three bays wide, with window articulation similar to that of the Madison Avenue facade. On the first floor, the second opening from west has a balcony and pediment. On the original second floor, the second bay from west is flanked by oval windows on either side, while the third bay from west is an oriel window. Within the 1888 extension, the first floor contains a projecting three-sided bay and a windowless arch. The second floor of the extension contains paired window openings flanking a smaller triple window, while the third floor contains paired windows on either side of an oval window. The cornice above the third floor, as well as the attic, in both the original house and its extension is similar to that on Madison Avenue.

The southern facade of the house faces the rest of the library and is mostly obscured behind the 2006 addition. The westernmost portion of that facade, near Madison Avenue, contains rounded first- and second-story windows. There are also three-sided angled windows at the center of that facade.

Interior

Inside the house were 45 rooms. After the museum's 1991 expansion, the house contained offices, conference rooms, meeting areas, and a gift shop. In addition, the ground-floor spaces were converted to lecture spaces. Inside the residence's attic is the 5,600-square-foot (520 m²) Thaw Conservation Center.

Entrance building and other annexe

 

The most recent addition to the library, completed in 2006, are three structures designed by Renzo Piano, who worked alongside preservation architect Beyer Blinder Belle. The primary structure in that grouping is a four-story, steel-and-glass entrance building on Madison Avenue. The entrance building expanded the Morgan Library's area by 75,000 square feet (7,000 m²), much of which is below ground. The structure links McKim's library building, the annex, and the Phelps Stokes/Morgan house. There are four galleries in this section of the museum: the Clare Eddy Thaw Gallery, the Morgan Stanley Galleries West and East, and the Engelhard Gallery. The steel structural members are covered in rose-tinted paint as an allusion to the designs of main library and Phelps Stokes/Morgan house. Although externally inconspicuous, the building helps links the interior spaces of the complex. Inside the structure, a glass elevator links the different levels, and there is also a reading room with balconies and a skylight.

The entrance building contains the JPMorgan Chase Lobby just inside the main entrance. On the lobby's north wall, stairs lead up to the Morgan Shop and Morgan Dining Room, and there is an admission counter and coat room. The south wall has a corridor to the Marble Hall and the Morgan Stanley Galleries West and East, as well as stairs to the Engelhard Gallery on the second floor. The east wall of the lobby has a stair to the lower level as well as elevators to both the Engelhard Gallery and the second level. Within the entrance building is Gilder Lehrman Hall, an auditorium about 65 feet (20 m) below street level, with 260, 280, or 299 seats. New storage rooms were also created by drilling into Manhattan's bedrock schist. The underground rooms extend to a depth of 55 feet (17 m) and contain much of the Morgan Library's collection.

Gilbert Court, a covered courtyard at the center of the complex, surrounds the entrance building on the north, east, and south. The courtyard is topped by a 50-foot-tall (15 m) glass roof. On the south wall of the court is the Clare Eddy Thaw Gallery, a 20-by-20-by-20-foot (6.1 m × 6.1 m × 6.1 m) space inspired by Renaissance chambers that Piano observed in Italy. There is also a structure next to 231 Madison Avenue, with ancillary areas and offices. The facades of the new above-ground buildings contain pinkish steel-and-glass curtain walls, which were intended to recall the design of the earlier buildings. At the court's southeast corner, stairs lead up to the original Morgan Library building, connecting to a vestibule between Morgan's study (the West Library) and the rotunda.

Former structures

The 2006 annexes replaced numerous structures built after 1928. Among these structures was a glass conservatory called the Garden Court, which was designed by Bartholomew Voorsanger and completed in 1991. The Garden Court had a curved roof measuring 42 feet (13 m) tall. Under the roof was a vaulted space with plants selected by landscape architect Dan Kiley. The roof was supported by a 55-foot-long (17 m) truss and was covered by clear laminated glass to allow the plants to grow. The space also had metal-and-translucent-glass wall panels and a limestone wall on Madison Avenue. There was a vestibule connecting with the 1928 annex to the south.

Management

The Morgan Library and Museum is operated by a nonprofit organization of the same name, which is dedicated to conserving the artworks in the museum's collection. Colin Bailey has been the director of the Morgan Library and Museum since 2015. As a result of a 2024 donation from Katharine Rayner, the director's position is known as the Katharine J. Rayner Director until 2049. The museum is administered by a board of trustees. As of March 2024^[update], Robert K. Steel and G. Scott Clemons were the co-presidents of the museum's board of trustees.

Until 1981, the president of the museum was a Morgan family member. Previous museum presidents have included Jack Morgan's sons Junius Spencer Morgan III and Henry Sturgis Morgan. Other notable people in the museum's history have included Felice Stampfle, who was appointed the first Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan Library in 1945. Some of the museum's past staff have donated objects to the collection, such as longtime librarian Curt F. Bühler, who donated illuminated manuscripts upon his death in 1985.

Admission and attendance

As of 2024^[update], the museum accommodates 250,000 in-person visitors annually, while its online programming serves seven million additional people each year. Starting in January 2024, college students have been able to visit for free on the first Sunday of each month. The museum also allows visitors to reserve tickets for free admission on Friday evenings. According to the Condé Nast Traveler, most visitors were tourists, though local residents also visited the museum whenever there was an event or new exhibition.

Funding

Jack Morgan established a $1.5 million endowment fund for the Pierpont Morgan Library when it was opened to researchers in 1924. In 2023^[update], the museum recorded total assets of $386 million and liabilities of $19.5 million.

Collection commentary

A correspondent for the London Times, in 1908, characterized John Pierpont Morgan as "probably the greatest collector of things splendid and beautiful and rare who has ever lived". In 1927, after the library became a research institution, one writer for the New York Herald Tribune called it "a temple of white marble, most fair and proportionate yet with an air of secret exclusiveness".

A writer for The Christian Science Monitor said in 1961 that the library housed "one of the most important private art collections in the world", and the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1966 that the Morgan Library was "a source of aesthetic refreshment and intellectual stimulation in any season". Another writer in 1969 described the Morgan as "a quiet enclave" that shunned publicity and that the collection of illuminated manuscripts, book bindings, and drawings was "unsurpassed in the Western Hemisphere". A Newsweek article from 1970 described the library as having a "regal atmosphere", and a 1974 article from the same magazine called the library a symbol of the "patronage and connoisseurship" of the early 20th century. The Globe and Mail described the library in 1980 as a "treasure trove of early art". A writer for The New York Times Magazine said in 1994 that she felt the library was inviting, despite its formidable appearance.

A 21st-century review from the Condé Nast Traveler said: "The Morgan is like a multi-hyphenate millennial—only instead of actress/model/influencer/whatever leads to early retirement, it's museum/library/landmark/historic site/music venue." A Fodor's review described the museum as having an "exceptional" collection of artifacts.

Architectural reception

Architectural commentary

Several publications praised the library after its completion. In 1906, the Real Estate Record and Guide wrote of McKim, Mead & White: "the new Morgan Library, in Thirty-sixth street, is among their most carefully studied designs." The library building was described in another publication as "one of the Seven Wonders of the Edwardian World", while Architectural Review called it "icy and exquisite". In a 1932 survey of 50 American architects, eleven ranked the Morgan Library as the United States' best building. A 1969 news article described the interiors' opulence as "almost indescribable", and Newsweek called Morgan's study "a tribute at once to his taste, his power and his vanity". Paul Goldberger wrote in 1981 that the main building's facade represented "rigorous, not fanciful, classicism" and the interiors were "very rich and very cold". The Financial Times wrote that the "dignified, austere and deceptively civic-looking facade [had] been isolated and inaccessible" until the completion of the garden in 2022.

The annexes received mixed reviews. Architectural historian Robert A. M. Stern said the 1928 addition "did not frame McKim's jewel box so much as sidle up to it like an unattractive sibling", and Washington Post reporter Benjamin Forgey said it was "not nearly so exquisite" as the original structure. Conversely, Norval White and Elliot Willensky thought the 1928 annex "modestly defers to its master". Goldberger described the Garden Court in 1991 as having "a sleek, almost brittle quality", and Forgey described the conservatory as helping create "a definable low-rise historical place in high-rise New York". When the Piano annex opened in 2006, Ada Louise Huxtable wrote that the museum was "cool in its understated excellence, its laid-back drama, the refinement of its details", as opposed to the old museum, which was "hot" because it was outwardly extravagant. The Financial Times wrote that the 2006 annex's "luminous steel and glass spaces, was as radically different to the heavy stone and dense ornament of the library as was possible".

Landmark designations

231 Madison Avenue was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) in 1965 as one of the first structures to be protected under New York City's landmarks law. The Lutheran Church, then the owner of 231 Madison Avenue, had hoped to erect an office structure on the site of the Phelps Stokes/Morgan house and heavily opposed the house's designation. As a result, in 1974, the landmark status was removed from that house following a New York Court of Appeals ruling. After the Morgan acquired 231 Madison Avenue, that house was re-designated as a city landmark in 2002; the Morgan did not oppose the designation.

In 1952, the Municipal Art Society and the Society of Architects' New York chapter published a list of 20 buildings in the city that should "be preserved at all costs". The main library building on 36th Street was the only 20th-century building on that list. The LPC designated the exterior of the library's main building as a city landmark in 1966, and that structure was declared a National Historic Landmark the same year. In 1982, the main library building's interior was designated a city landmark. After the 1991 renovation made the main building wheelchair-accessible, the LPC gave the library an excellence award.

• List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City
• List of National Historic Landmarks in New York City
• List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets

Notes