Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

A Celebration: Acquisitions in Honor of the Morgan's Centennial

May 9 through August 17, 2025

In the century since its founding as a public institution, the Morgan’s collections have grown dramatically, deepening the core assembled by J. Pierpont Morgan and his librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, who became the first Director of the institution. This growth is made possible through the support of members and donors who expand and enrich the historical, artistic, and literary contexts of the Morgan’s holdings, and this exhibition commemorates a notable selection of purchases, gifts, and promised gifts made in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial. Ranging from the Middle Ages to the present, the Centennial acquisition highlights include two manuscripts related to the publication of Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting; Renaissance and modern bookbindings of exceptional craftsmanship; an extraordinary group of manuscripts related to Queen Elizabeth I, Marie de’ Medici, Edgar Allan Poe, and John Coltrane; groups of photographs by Emmet Gowin and Frederick Sommer; and drawings by Parmigianino, Annibale Carracci, Cy Twombly, Helen Frankenthaler, Giuseppe Penone, and Bridget Riley.

Organized by John McQuillen, Associate Curator of Printed Books & Bindings.

A Celebration: Acquisitions in Honor of the Morgan's Centennial is made possible by the Sherman Fairchild Fund for Exhibitions, the Charles E. Pierce Jr. Fund for Exhibitions, and the Lucy Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund.

Leonardo da Vinci, Trattato della pittura : manuscript, fair copy produced in the workshop of Cassiano dal Pozzo. MA 23865.

Selected Images

Leonardo da Vinci
Italian, 1452–1519
Trattato della pittura (A Treatise on Painting)
Manuscript fair copy, produced in the workshop of Cassiano dal Pozzo, ca. 1638–1641
Purchased on the T. Kimball Brooker Foundation Book Purchase Fund in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial, 2023; MA 23865.

Cy Twombly
American, 1928–2011
Naumackia, 1992
Tempera and graphite
The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Agnes Gund in honor of the Morgan's Centennial. 2024, 2024.154. © Cy Twombly Foundation, Courtesy Gagosian
Photography by Robert McKeever.

St. Paul
Single leaf from a gradual
Illuminated by the Master of the Cypresses (Nicolás Gómez?)
Seville, Spain, second half of the fifteenth century
Gift of William M. Voelkle in memory of John H. Plummer on the occasion of the Morgan’s Centennial, 2024

Kissing the Paten
Cutting from a book of hours
Illuminated by the artist of Morgan 293
Besançon, France, 1430s
Promised gift of Jean-François Vilain and Roger S. Wieck on the occasion of the Morgan’s Centennial

Sacred Bleeding Host of Dijon
Single leaf from a book of hours
Illuminated by the Master of the Hours of Jean des Bruyères and Jeanne de Recourt (Master Regnault or Oudot Matuchet?)
Dijon, France, 1530s
Promised gift of Jean-François Vilain and Roger S. Wieck on the occasion of the Morgan’s Centennial

Nativity and Journey of the Magi
“Hours of Marie de’ Medici, Queen of France” Italy, early seventeenth century
MS M.1255, fols. 24v–25r
Gift of Mary Ann Kraus Folter in memory of Roland Folter on the occasion of the Morgan’s Centennial, 2025

Adoration of the Magi
“Hours of Anne de Neufville”
Illuminated by the Bedford Master (Haincelin Hegenau?)
Paris, France, ca. 1430
MS M.1250, fols. 93v–94r
Gift from the collection of Marguerite Steed Hoffman on the occasion of the Morgan’s Centennial, 2024

Jamie Kamph, binder
American, b. 1946
Cream linen, embroidered with colored threads, in miniature cabinet, on: Hannah Woolley (ca. 1622–1675)
The Queen-Like Closet, 1670
Gift of Jamie Kamph in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial, 2024; PML 199100 © Jamie Kamph

 

Giovanni Battista Capocaccia
Italian, sixteenth century
Portrait of Pope Pius V and Teodosio Fiorenzi, Rome, 1566–68
Wax relief
Purchased on the T. Kimball Brooker Foundation Book Purchase Fund in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial; PML 199041

Perhaps Felice Feliciano, binder
Italian, 1433–1479
Pierced brown goatskin over blue paper and green silk, with gold tooling and relief plaquette, on:
Codex Lippomano, ca. 1480
Purchased on the T. Kimball Brooker Foundation Book Purchase Fund in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial; PML 199044

Atelier au Vase, binder
French, act. ca, 1560–70
Light brown, powdered-gold goatskin leather with gold tooling, on:
Vitruvius Pollio (first century BCE)
Dell’architettura (On Architecture), 1556
Purchased on the T. Kimball Brooker Foundation Book Purchase Fund in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial; PML 199218
Photography by Pixel Acuity

Richard Minsky
American, b. 1947
The Bill of Rights: The First Amendment:
(Reliquary for the ashes of Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses”)
New York, issued February 19, 2001
The Morgan Library & Museum, Purchased as the gift of Karen B. Cohen in honor of the Morgan's Centennial, 2024. PML 199112. © Richard Minsky
Photography by Richard Minsky

Elizabeth I
English, 1533–1603
Draft of royal warrant and “Brief Content,” 1592 Manuscript, in a scribal hand
Gift of Jennifer B. Lee in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial, 2024; MA 23878

Unknown photographer
Edgar Allan Poe, ca. 1849–1850s
Daguerreotype
Gift of Susan Jaffe Tane in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial, 2024; MA 23906

Belle da Costa Greene
American, 1879–1950
Autograph letter to J. P. “Jack” Morgan Jr., April 19, 1913
Pages 1 and 2 in facsimile
Gift of the Estate of Anne Morgan August in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial, 2023; ARC 3306.1

John Coltrane
American, 1926–1967
Fragments and drafts for incomplete compositions
Autograph manuscript, ca. 1945–55
Gift of Jacob and Yael Samuel in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial, 2024. The Morgan Library & Museum, MMM 203. © Jowcol Music, LLC. Used By Permission/All Rights

Sticherarion
Hymn book in Byzantine musical notation
Manuscript, late seventeenth or eighteenth century
Gift of William M. Voelkle, in honor of Mervin R. Dilts and David J. Murphy, 2023, on the occasion of the Morgan’s Centennial

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
German, 1805–1847
Music and autograph letter to her mother, Lea,
Rome, March 15, 1840
Drawings by Wilhelm Hensel (1794–1861) The Mary Flagler Cary Music Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, MFC
H5264.M5378.
Photography by Carmen González Fraile

John Philip Sousa
American, 1854–1932
Annabel Lee
Philadelphia: Theodore Presser, [1931]
Morgan Music Collection Gifts of Susan Jaffe Tane, in honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Morgan Library, 2022

Emmet Gowin
American, b. 1941
Edith in Panama, Double Portrait, Holding, with Leaf Predation, 2003
Salted paper print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Edith and Emmet Gowin in honor of the Morgan’s centennial. 2024.73. © Emmet Gowin

Annibale Carracci
Italian, 1560–1609
A Boy Lying on His Back, ca. 1582
Red chalk
Gift of Susanna and Livio Borghese in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial; 2024.157

Francois Watteau, called Watteau de Lille
French, 1758–1823
A Seated Woman, Shading Her Eyes from the Light, ca. 1785–90
Black and white chalk on blue paper, now faded to brown
The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Janet Mavec in honor of the Morgan's Centennial, 2023.123

Helen Frankenthaler
American, 1928–2011
Third Floor, 94th Street, No. IV, 1960
Gouache and charcoal
The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation in honor of the Morgan's Centennial. 2023, 2023.182. © 2025
Helen Frankenthaler / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Giuseppe Penone
Italian, b. 1947
Tra scorza e scorza (Between Bark and Bark), 2001
Graphite, typographical ink, acrylic, and coffee on Japanese paper
The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of the artist in honor of the Morgan's Centennial, 2024, 2024.35. © 2025 Giuseppe Penone / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Terry Winters
American, b. 1949
Inflection, Vector, Frame / 2, 2009
Graphite and gouache
Gift of Audrey and Zygmunt Wilf in honor of the Morgan's Centennial; 2024.2 © Terry Winters, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery