This story is about a library-museum that became famous due to its large collection of rare things such as manuscripts, books, papyri, etc. Find out more about the foundation, construction and collections of the Morgan Library at manhattan1.one.
Foundation
The Morgan Library & Museum is a research library known for its large collection of various valuable manuscripts, books, papyri, incunabula, original musical scores, graphic works, etc. This building is located in Manhattan, on Madison Avenue.
The history of the well-known library-museum began thanks to the American banker and financier John Pierpont Morgan. It all started with the fact that Morgan decided to move from Hartford, Connecticut State to Murray Hill. However, it is worth noting that the place where John decided to buy a house, the residence of the Phelps family used to be located. So in 1881, Morgan buys one of the houses for his own residence.
It was at this time that John started collecting. In particular, these were mainly manuscripts, books, bindings and graphic works of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. However, later the collection grew so much that there was a catastrophic lack of space, so the idea arose to build his own library.
Library construction
An area of land near his house was purchased for the construction of the library. To develop the project, John appealed to the architectural firm Warren and Wetmore, but the man did not like their strategy and work, so he eventually turned to the architect Charles McKim from the firm McKim. Designing was held with the participation of John Morgan himself. Construction began around 1903 and ended in 1906. The building, as planned by the customer himself, turned out really well. Even publicists of the time highly appreciated the building, calling it “one of the seven wonders of the Edwardian world.” The entire Morgan’s collection was transferred to the library in 1907. It is also worth noting that an extension to the main library was built in 1928.
After the appearance of the library, John Pierpont Morgan hired his own librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, and entrusted her with expanding and researching the collection. To avoid paying import taxes, he was obliged to open the library to visitors on certain days of the week.
After Morgan’s death, his son opened the library to the general public according to his father’s will. It happened in 1924.
Something about the building
The main library building was built in the classical Renaissance style and occupies an area of 117/50 feet (36/15 m). The facade of the building is made of Tennessee marble. The main entrance has the Palladian Arch supported by four Ionic columns. There are two lionesses near the stairs sculpted by Edward Clark Potter. The library is surrounded by a garden that covers 5,000 square feet (460 m/sq) and contains artifacts from the J.P. Morgan Collection.
The interior of the main premises of the library is richly decorated, with a polychrome rotunda. The facility had such rooms as: Morgan’s private office, librarian’s office, library premises and exhibition rooms. In addition to that, in this building Morgan had a steel storage room for storing his most valuable manuscripts. The ceiling of the building is made of plaster and frescoes. The floor of the rotunda is lined with multi-colored marble. The walls contain mosaic plinths and are divided into panels with vertical pilasters topped with pilasters in a composite style. Interroom doors were made of white marble. Books were stored in special cabinets.
The extension had the appearance of a two-story building in the Italian style. The facade is also made of Tennessee marble. The premises were used for offices, exhibitions and a research library.
Collection
The Morgan Library & Museum has a large valuable collection, namely manuscripts, books, publications, illustrations, etc. Among the manuscripts, we can distinguish: “The Morgan Bible”, “The Hours of Catherine of Cleves”, “The Farnese Hours”, “The Morgan Black Hours” and “Glazier Codex”. In addition to that, the collection has the manuscripts of Sir Walter Scott and Honore de Balzac, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Notebook, Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” manuscript, original letters of Napoleon and Horace Walpole, as well as original drawings for “The Pickwick Papers” and “The Book of Job”, etc.
The library also contains a number of incunabula, engravings, and drawings of European artists such as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Gainsborough, Dürer, Picasso, etc. The works of such artists as Jean de Brunhoff, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, John Leech, Gaston Phoebus, Rembrandt van Rijn, John Ruskin, etc. are also presented here. In addition to that, the Morgan Library has other non-literary items such as Persian carpet, Genoese and Chinese vases, tapestries, bronze and silver, Greek antiques, miniatures with precious stones, porcelain, antique jewelry, clocks, etc.