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The
Pierpont Morgan Library By Lisa L. Jones, New York Business Manager and US Marketing Director The name John Pierpont Morgan is synonymous with success, wealth, and power. One of America’s great financiers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he is perhaps best remembered for his impressive contri-butions to business: he restructured the U.S. rail-road system, he consolidated the United States Steel industry, and he successfully diverted national financial disaster in the 1907 Wall Street panic. But what many people don’t know however is that J.P. Morgan’s hidden career was that of a collector. And a passionate one at that. At the time of his death in 1913, at age 75, his personal fortune in art alone totaled US$ 60 Million. Morgan showed an interest for collecting at an early age, when at fourteen he wrote to President Millard Fillmore in an effort to obtain his autograph. It was not however until the latter part of his life that he really began collecting. His father’s death in 1890 left Morgan an extremely wealthy man, and it was then, at age 54, that he began collecting on a massive scale - if he wanted it he bought it. And buy, he did. Morgan was willing, and moreover financially able to purchase an entire vitrine of objets d’art just to obtain one single piece. He was passionate for all types of art; from books, manuscripts, auto-graphs, porcelain, watches, jewels, reliquaries, Chinese screens, paintings and master drawings, panels, regency furniture, oriental carpets, ivories, tapestries, bronzes, dress armor, Egyptian sculpture, and gold medallions, to snuff boxes -there seemed to be no end to his insatiable desire, to acquire, possess, and collect. Morgan’s financial fortune allowed him to amass people’s entire collections: The Library of Leather and Literature of James Toovey; more than half of George B. de Forest’s collection of French Literature; almost the entire library of the Duke of Hamilton; the James A. Garland collection of ancient glass and oriental porcelains; the Apocalypse of the duc de Berri; the library of Richard Bennett of Manchester, England; The Wakeman collection of American Manuscripts; The Gaston LeBreton collection of French faience; the Gutmann collection of antiques bronzes; the Marsden J. Perry collection of Chinese Porcelains; The George Hoentschel collection of decorative arts; and the Marfels Collection of Watches. Morgan’s watch collection, which he had purchased from Marfels, included Renaissance watches from Germany, France and England, as well as some Blois enameled watches. In 1912, J. Pierpont Morgan commissioned Mr. George C. Williamson, an eminent expert of the time, to catalogue his prestigious watch collection, which is today in the Metropolitan Museum. This work, entitled “Catalogue of The Collection of Watches, The Property of J. Pierpont Morgan”, compiled at his request, was published at Pierpont Morgan’s expense by The Chiswick Press, in London, and produced in 3 editions. The first, a numbered limited edition of 45 copies, in hand-made paper, full red morocco binding with ribbed back and tooled decoration; the second, a numbered limited edition of 20 copies in Japanese vellum, full blue morocco binding with ribbed back and tooled decoration; and the third, a numbered limited edition of 15 copies, in Pur vellum, full brown morocco binding with ribbed back and tooled decoration. The reputation of this magnificent volume spread well beyond the specialized world of horology. It is today considered one of the most beautiful and prestigious publications of the 20th century. An example from the edition with blue morocco cover was auctioned by Antiquorum, in Geneva, in November 2001, as part of the Collection of Professor Thomas Engel (lot 203). It fetched an impressive SFr. 13,800 (approx. US$ 8,500). Morgan commissioned many other books of his collections. In addition the catalogue of watches, Williamson, also wrote “The Catalogue of Miniatures” in 1908, and “The Catalogue of Jewels and Precious Works of Art” in 1910. There was a four-volume set catalogue written about Morgan’s collection of manuscripts and early printed books. The manuscripts, featured in one volume, were catalogued by M.R. James in 1906, and the printed books, a three-volume set, were catalogued by A.W. Pollard in 1907. Up until the early 1900's Morgan kept the majority of his collections in England - some of which were on loan to museums, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, others were kept on view at his house in Prince’s Gate, or at his country home, Dover House, just outside London. Morgan had financial, as well as cultural reasons for keeping his collections abroad. The 1897 U.S. Government ruling imposed an import tax of 20% on works of art. Books and manuscripts, however, were exempt from this tax so long as they were intended for religious, educational, scientific, philosophical, or literary purposes. Since Morgan often bought single copies of manuscripts and rare books with no intention to sell, he was able to bring them to the U.S. tax-free. Interestingly, Morgan was not a collector of Americana. Nor did he patronize the artists of his time. When collecting, Morgan sought to bring the art of the Europeans and ancient civilizations to his homeland. Perhaps, in part, this was due to his competitive nature combined with his sense of American duty to contribute and create of America a great republic that could compete culturally with Europe. This theory is furthermore supported by the design and interior décor of his once private library, which, now a public institution, is a far cry from a typical American building of the time.
Morgan was one of the greatest art and book collectors of his day. By the turn of the century, his passion for books and manuscripts had outgrown his space, and Morgan had more than his study could hold. As early as 1899 Morgan was already storing items in a Forty-second Street warehouse. Since he was unable to view and touch his collection on a daily basis, this prompted him in 1903 to commission architect Charles Foillen McKim of Mead & White to construct a library to house his vast collection of books and manuscripts, prints and drawings. The library - known today as the Pierpont Morgan Library, located at Madison Avenue and 36th Street in New York City - was first estimated to cost Morgan US$ 850,000, but resulted in costing approximately US$ 1.2 Million by the time of its completion in 1906. A Renaissance-style palazzo, constructed with pinkish-white marble, it soon became a monument, standing out in the busy 20th century metropolis. Morgan was intimately involved in every step of its construction. He wanted only the best: the finest materials and the finest techniques. From an antique wooden ceiling and Roman marble floors, to lapis lazuli columns, bronze bookcases, and Istrian marble mantelpieces, Morgan spared no expense. He commissioned American artist Henry Siddons Mowbray -head of the American Academy in Rome -to paint Italian Renaissance-like murals on the walls and ceilings. In 1924, Morgan’s library was transformed by his son J.P. Morgan Jr. into a public insti-tution, as a memorial to his father’s love of books and rare manuscripts.
Morgan was often known to buy at auction, though dealers, and often used a private name. Despite the method, Morgan was always intimately involved in his purchases. When it came to art, he believed in his own faith to recognize quality, an attribute that very much paralleled his business approach. Since Morgan bought more art and literature than he personally could ever house, he consequently began donating to American public institutions while he was still alive. In the late 1890's he gave a collection of letters, books, and manuscripts to the New York Public Library. He bought several textile collections for the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, and in 1902, he gave the Metropolitan the Garland Collection of 2000 Chinese porcelains. After his death in the spring of 1913, J.P. Morgan Jr., the only of Morgan’s children who shared in his father’s passion for collecting, was left with the responsibility of dispersing his father’s vast collections. Morgan Jr., carrying out his father’s last wishes donated some 40% of his father's collection - mostly medieval and renaissance works - to the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art. The later works, Baroque and Rococo objects, were donated to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Morgan’s birthplace. The remainder of his collection was either divided amongst his other children or sold. Fortunately, many of the works were also bought by collectors, who later bequeathed their possessions to such institutions as the Frick Collection, which is now home to “The Loves of the Shepherds”, the great Fragonard panels. The National Gallery in Washington D.C., is home to the Mazarin Tapestry and “A Lady Writing”, by Vermeer.
For Morgan, was collecting just part of his insatiable desire to own and possess? Or was it a matter of pure appreciation for the finer things that his financial fortune allowed him the means to possess? Perhaps collecting stemmed from Morgan’s pride for his country, and his desire to enrich it by bringing the glory of Europe to America. Whatever the case, Morgan’s energy, insatiable desire, and passion that was so well known on Wall Street was carried over into other aspects of his life. J. P. Morgan was a true collector in all senses of the word. |
When
it came to collecting, Morgan did not buy anything that he had not seen
with his own eyes. His business sense had taught him to take advantage
of the advice of experts and connoisseurs in the field. Among his art
advisors were Sir Hercules Read of the British Museum of Antiquities,
William von Bode, director of Berlin’s Kaiser Friedrich Museum, and
Bishop William Lawrence, editor of the New York Sun and expert in Chinese
Porcelain, as well as the entire staff of the Metropolitan Museum where
Morgan served as a trustee in 1888, and later chairman of the board
in 1904.