A treasure trove of rare works on paper
Once the personal library of financier Pierpont Morgan, the Morgan Library & Museum was gifted to New York and opened to the public in 1924. It is home to Morgan’s important collection of illuminated, literary and historical manuscripts, early printed books, and Old Master drawings and prints. Through donations and acquisitions, the institution has since added music manuscripts, early children's books, Americana, and 20th-century material to its 350,000-strong collection. It is an important place for research and conservation and, located on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, the building itself is a treasure. Built between 1902–1906 and designed by the architect Charles McKim, it resembles an Italian Renaissance-style palazzo. The grand features include marble floors, 30-foot-high walls, three tiers of floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a rotunda painted in the style of Italian master Raphael. Highlights of the collection include three copies of the Gutenberg Bible (1444–1445), the first substantial book printed from movable type in the West; a signed manuscript of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” (1843); the Auguste Renoir drawing “Bathers” (1884–1885), and one of about two dozen original prints of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776). In 2006, a Renzo Piano-designed renovation and extension joined together the original library building, a 1928 pavilion extension and the nearby home of J. P. Morgan, Jr., which he donated to the museum.
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