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Morning view:
The plan for the day was the Morgan Library:
The Morgan Library is amazing. I had a pre-paid will call ticket so my admission sticker didn’t have a time printed on it. Admission is timed and you’re supposed to only be there an hour. People who bought admission there had time stamps on their stickers and I heard some stressing about ‘only fifteen minutes left, we only have fifteen minutes’ Meanwhile, I spent a leisurely two hours and did a full circuit of everything twice, even sat for a bit to look over my photos and post to Bluesky.
It wasn’t until I was there and I’d seen the name ‘J Pierre Morgan’ a few times that my brain turned on and I realized this was the collection of JP Morgan, as in JP Morgan Chase. Chase Bank. I didn't know anything about this place, I just looked up stuff to do in NYC, saw one image of the Morgan Library and went 'yes, good' and put it on the list. I figured I'd learn about it there. In addition to his personal library, you can also see his office, his librarian's office, the modern galleries that were added and the large cafe in the center of the space.
His office:
Vault in his office with thick steel walls for his most valuable books:
( A few more pics )
There is almost nothing about JP in there, but lots about Belle da Costa Greene, his librarian. She was a light skinned black woman who passed as white for more of her career. The largest exhibit - which runs though May 4 - was on her, her life, showing photos of her and how they were shot to help her pass. So much on colorism. Two whole galleries were filled with pictures and drawings of her, her life, colorism in that era in general. Not what I was expecting to explore for my afternoon, my plan was 'try to get selfie in pretty room', but I was impressed.
Her office:
Her office had a large display of rolling seals - Each cluster is a seal, an actual imprint and then a photo enlarged to show detail:
Belle in her apartment with her personal library:
I was amused by the analog photoshopping, details where painted over to make it pop for print:
While JP collected European and medieval texts, she collected Asian and Middle Eastern texts and fine examples of Persian Script - from her collection:
Very little is know about her point of view on things. Someone was working on a biography of her, but the manuscript was lost? She was authorized to spent up to 100k of his funds on a single book, 100k in 1910 money, so about 3.3 mill. There is a pastel illustration of her at a 1911 auction bidding 50k for a single volume.
In addition to all that, there was yet another gallery of illuminated manuscripts, a stone passageway lead up to an gallery with a display on Kafka:
The hallways between the spaces also has painted ceilings, artifacts, rare book editions, etc.
And then another gallery with an exhibit about how often Medieval books were chopped up, pages treated like art prints, insets removed, etc. This is a painting and the book it was taken from:
A lot of medieval art we have is from books that were chopped up to treat the illuminations as like paintings, or sometimes bindings were removed to make the books cheaper to move over the ages.
And finally a depiction of how why so many valuable books, paintings, statues and other things from all over Europe got concentrated into one NYC townhouse:
I really lucked out with which temporary exhibits I got to see. The one of Belle da Costa Greene was amazing and I wish it was permanent. The two additional medieval book exhibits were great. The Kafka one I sort of breezed through.
The plan for the day was the Morgan Library:
The Morgan Library is amazing. I had a pre-paid will call ticket so my admission sticker didn’t have a time printed on it. Admission is timed and you’re supposed to only be there an hour. People who bought admission there had time stamps on their stickers and I heard some stressing about ‘only fifteen minutes left, we only have fifteen minutes’ Meanwhile, I spent a leisurely two hours and did a full circuit of everything twice, even sat for a bit to look over my photos and post to Bluesky.
It wasn’t until I was there and I’d seen the name ‘J Pierre Morgan’ a few times that my brain turned on and I realized this was the collection of JP Morgan, as in JP Morgan Chase. Chase Bank. I didn't know anything about this place, I just looked up stuff to do in NYC, saw one image of the Morgan Library and went 'yes, good' and put it on the list. I figured I'd learn about it there. In addition to his personal library, you can also see his office, his librarian's office, the modern galleries that were added and the large cafe in the center of the space.
His office:
Vault in his office with thick steel walls for his most valuable books:
( A few more pics )
There is almost nothing about JP in there, but lots about Belle da Costa Greene, his librarian. She was a light skinned black woman who passed as white for more of her career. The largest exhibit - which runs though May 4 - was on her, her life, showing photos of her and how they were shot to help her pass. So much on colorism. Two whole galleries were filled with pictures and drawings of her, her life, colorism in that era in general. Not what I was expecting to explore for my afternoon, my plan was 'try to get selfie in pretty room', but I was impressed.
Her office:
Her office had a large display of rolling seals - Each cluster is a seal, an actual imprint and then a photo enlarged to show detail:
Belle in her apartment with her personal library:
I was amused by the analog photoshopping, details where painted over to make it pop for print:
While JP collected European and medieval texts, she collected Asian and Middle Eastern texts and fine examples of Persian Script - from her collection:
Very little is know about her point of view on things. Someone was working on a biography of her, but the manuscript was lost? She was authorized to spent up to 100k of his funds on a single book, 100k in 1910 money, so about 3.3 mill. There is a pastel illustration of her at a 1911 auction bidding 50k for a single volume.
In addition to all that, there was yet another gallery of illuminated manuscripts, a stone passageway lead up to an gallery with a display on Kafka:
The hallways between the spaces also has painted ceilings, artifacts, rare book editions, etc.
And then another gallery with an exhibit about how often Medieval books were chopped up, pages treated like art prints, insets removed, etc. This is a painting and the book it was taken from:
A lot of medieval art we have is from books that were chopped up to treat the illuminations as like paintings, or sometimes bindings were removed to make the books cheaper to move over the ages.
And finally a depiction of how why so many valuable books, paintings, statues and other things from all over Europe got concentrated into one NYC townhouse:
I really lucked out with which temporary exhibits I got to see. The one of Belle da Costa Greene was amazing and I wish it was permanent. The two additional medieval book exhibits were great. The Kafka one I sort of breezed through.
