On October 30, the historic center of The Morgan Library & Museum—its landmark McKim building—reopens to the public following the completion of the most extensive restoration of its interior spaces since its construction more than one hundred years ago. Designed by the firm of McKim, Mead and White, this portion of the Morgan was once the private study and library of financier Pierpont Morgan. The Italianate marble villa, designed in the spirit of the High Renaissance, is considered one of New York’s
great architectural treasures, and its interiors are regarded as some of the most beautiful in America. The $4.5 million restoration, which began in June, revitalizes this core area of the Morgan, in many ways completing the institution’s dynamic transformation that began in 2006 with Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo
Piano’s successful expansion and renovation of the campus.

The project provides enhanced exhibition space for the institution and enables the Morgan to share with the public more treasures from its world-renowned permanent collection. The inaugural installation demonstrates the extraordinary quality and scope of Pierpont Morgan’s interests as a collector and cultural steward. Nearly 300 objects dating from 3500 BC to the twentieth century will be displayed throughout the
building’s majestic rooms in a series of rotating exhibitions. Previously, only about thirty objects were regularly on view in the McKim.

The restoration project encompasses all of the McKim’s rooms and exhibition spaces. Key components include new lighting throughout the building to better illuminate its extraordinary murals and decor, the opening of the North Room to visitors for the first time, installation of new exhibition cases to house rotating displays of masterpieces from the Morgan’s collections, restoration of period furniture and fixtures, and cleaning of the walls and applied ornamentation.

Library (East Room)
Pierpont Morgan’s stunning library, also known as the East Room, is defined by its majestic thirty-foot walls, lined floor to ceiling with triple tiers of bookcases made of inlaid Circassian walnut and featuring volumes of European literature from the sixteenth through twentieth centuries. The library now is equipped with a new state-of-the-art, yet subtle lighting system; a newly installed late-nineteenth-century Persian rug of the type originally in the room; and newly designed display cases exhibiting some of the Morgan’s most valued objects. The inlaid walnut bookshelves that contain the Morgan’s collection of rare books have been enhanced with nonreflective Plexiglas, allowing visitors to identify individual titles and to appreciate the beauty of the exquisite bindings more fully. An original pendant chandelier, preserved since its removal about seventy years ago and designed by twentieth-century New York designer Edward F. Caldwell, has been restored and rehung at the library’s entrance.

Prior to the restoration, only a handful of objects were regularly on view in the library. Highlights of the approximately one hundred rotating works that will be on display each year in this room include: the manuscript of Mozart’s famed “Haffner” Symphony No. 35 (1782); one of the earliest editions of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1483); and one of the Morgan’s three original Gutenberg Bibles (ca. 1455), the first book printed with moveable type.

Study (West Room)

The Renaissance-inspired furnishings of the Study, or West Room, and the paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts displayed reveal the breadth of Morgan’s interests and activity as a collector, and reflect his reputation as a “modern day Medici.” The Study has been enriched by a more substantive display of works from the collection that surrounded Pierpont Morgan in the early 1900s, when he used the room for personal business, as well as with objects that have been acquired since. More than double the number of objects are on view, including works never shown before, such as the 1530 Verrazano globe, one of the earliest known dated globes, and a bronze St. John the Baptist after Michelozzo. Other works include paintings by Hans Memling, Francesco Francia, Perugino, and Jacopo Tintoretto, among others.

The steel-lined vault in the southeast corner of the room, equipped with a bank vault door and combination lock, is where Pierpont Morgan housed his most valued acquisitions, particularly his collection of more than 600 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. As part of the McKim restoration project, another modification to the Study makes the vault more accessible to visitors. The curtain which shrouded the vault’s entrance has been removed, new lighting fixtures have been installed, and the vault shelves filled with sumptuous leather boxes that housed the Morgan’s manuscripts and rare books.

North Room

The North Room, the intimate office of the Morgan’s first director, Belle da Costa Greene, is now open to the public for the first time, and has been transformed to feature the earliest works in the Morgan’s collection, including objects from the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as artifacts from the early medieval period. More than 200 objects are on permanent view in this new exhibition space. The two-tiered room, lined with walnut bookshelves, features a ceiling of Renaissance-inspired paintings and a bronze bust of Giovanni Boccaccio on the mantle of the fireplace.

Bookshelves along the perimeter of the room have been converted to exquisitely lit cases to display these items, notably a selection of Ancient Near Eastern cylinder seals collected by Pierpont Morgan. Dating from around 3500 BC, these miniature engraved stones were in use for about 3,000 years in the region referred to as Mesopotamia. These seals were the earliest known objects to use pictorial symbols to
communicate ideas. Also on view is a selection of clay tablets, including a seventeenth-century BC fragment inscribed with the Babylonian flood epic predating the story of Noah’s Ark in the Old Testament.

Rotunda

The Rotunda, originally entered through the grand doors facing 36th Street, is the dramatic center of the McKim building. Its intricate and elaborately decorated ceiling, also painted by Mowbray, refers thematically to the great treasures contained within this remarkable structure, depicting figures from classical antiquity and the great literary epochs of the past, including Homer, Dante, and Petrarch. The splendor of color and texture is supplied by variegated marble surfaces and columns, mosaic panels and columns of lapis lazuli. The marble surfaces and mosaic panels that are
signature features of the McKim Rotunda have been cleaned and restored to their original grandeur for the first time in a century. New lighting simulates the natural light that originally came through the oculus and enhances the richly illustrated apse, ceiling, and lunettes.

Prior to the restoration, the Rotunda was not used as an exhibition space. Now, new display cases have been installed, housing the first substantive display of the Morgan’s outstanding collection of Americana, including such great works as autograph letters by Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, the Morgan’s life mask of George Washington, copies of the first Bible printed in America, and the Declaration of Independence.

McKim Re-Opening Public Programs
Saturday, October 30, 2010

All events are included with admission to The Morgan Library & Museum. Tickets to the lecture and concert are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis on the day of the program. Advance reservations for Morgan members only: 212.685.0008 x560 or tickets@themorgan.org.

12–3 pm Performance by Mannes College The New School for Music students in the Morgan’s Gilbert Court, including repertoire from the Italian baroque to the American Gilded Age.

1–1:45 pm Lecture by William Griswold in Gilder Lehrman Hall, including details of the McKim restoration project and an introduction to the Morgan’s history and collections.

4–5:30 pm Concert by New-Trad Octet in Gilder Lehrman Hall Combining instruments and elements of a traditional New Orleans brass band with those of a modern jazz group, Jeff Newell and the New-Trad Octet explore the early sources of America’s musical heritage. To celebrate the period of American history covered in the Morgan’s exhibition Mark Twain: A Skeptic’s Progress that also parallels Mr. Morgan’s Life, the program features works by Stephen Foster, Scott Joplin, John Philip Sousa, and others.

All Day Docents and education staff are on hand throughout the day to provide visitors with historical insight into the Morgan’s architecture. The Morgan’s audio tour also is available.