In 1924 J. P. Morgan, Jr. gave his father's extraordinary library to the public. The most influential financier in USA history, Pierpont Morgan was also a voracious collector. He bought on an astonishing scale, collecting art objects in virtually every medium, including the rare books, manuscripts, drawings, prints, and ancient artifacts that are the core of The Morgan Library & Museum's holdings.

Mr. Morgan's library, as it was known in his lifetime, was built between 1902 and 1906 adjacent to his New York residence at Madison Avenue and 36th Street. Designed by Charles McKim of the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, the library was intended as something more than a repository of rare materials. Majestic in appearance yet intimate in scale, the structure was to reflect the nature and stature of its holdings. The result was an Italian Renaissance-style palazzo with three magnificent rooms epitomizing America's Age of Elegance. Based on the attic story of the Nymphaeum of 1555, built in Rome for Pope Juluis III, its facade of Tennessee marble was laid up without mortar centers on an entrance in the form of a Palladian arch.

Pierpont Morgan Library, NY, NY, USA