The Morgan Library & Museum

While the best-known Bibiena sets evoke the courtyards of majestic Baroque palaces, the artists also followed contemporary architectural trends. This design, for example, suggests a grand Parisian hôtel interior, with a unified arrangement of chairs, side tables, and pier mirrors in a room decorated with paintings of gods and goddesses. The sheet may have been executed when Carlo Bibiena was assisting his father in Bayreuth. On View // Architecture, Theat...er, and Fantasy: Bibiena Drawings from the Jules Fisher Collection Carlo Galli Bibiena (17211787) Palace Interior with Tritons and Mirrored Gallery, a Design for the Stage, ca. 174550 Pen and brown ink and gray wash, over black chalk Gift of Jules Fisher; inv. no. 2021.38 Architecture, Theater, and Fantasy: Bibiena Drawings from the Jules Fisher Collection is a program of the Morgan Drawing Institute. See more

This manuscript contains numerous images of the real and imaginary lands that made up the medieval world. The miniatures are arranged alphabetically and typically focus on the various peoples, exotic costumes, unusual customs, and fantastic creatures of a particular region. Explore online: www.themorgan.org/collection/livre-des-merveilles-du-monde Livre des merveilles du monde... France, probably Angers ca. 1460 281 x 220 mm Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (18371913) in 1911 MS M.461, fols. 12v13r See more

Eid Mubarak to those celebrate! To commemorate Eid al-Fitrthe holiday marking end of Ramadanwe broke out one of the smallest books in our collection. This miniature Quran is only about an inch and a half tall. This seventeenth-century octagonal example from Persia is bound on one side and has sixteen lines of text per page. The silver banner box is from the nineteenth century. . Such miniature Qurans are called sancak, after the standard-bearers (sancakdar) who attached th...em to military flags, where they served as talismans. Travelers also wore them as good-luck charms. . . . . Miniature Quran and Banner Box Quran, in Arabic Persia 17th century On paper 40 mm in octagonal format Bequest of Julia Wightman, 1994 #eid #EidalFitr #quran #ramadan See more

Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander is internationally celebrated for bringing Indo-Persian miniature-painting traditions into dialogue with contemporary art practice. Join our Facebook Live on Monday, May 17, 6:30 PM, as Sikander provides a special preview of the upcoming exhibition "Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities," opening June 18, 2021. This exhibition tracks the first fifteen years of Sikander's artistic journey, in which the artist richly interrogated g...ender, sexuality, race, class, and history, creating open-ended narratives that have sustained her work as one of the most significant artists working today. Facebook Live // Shahzia Sikander on "Extraordinary Realities" // Monday, May 17, 6:30 PM This free event will be live-streamed to the Morgan's Facebook page. Follow us to watch! Shahzia Sikander, Hood's Red Rider No. 2, 1997. Vegetable color, dry pigment, watercolor, gold (paint), and tea on wasli paper; 26.1 x 18.3 cm (10 1/4 x 7 3/16 inches). Collection of Susan and Lew Manilow. Shahzia Sikander. Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York. "Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities" is organized by the RISD Museum and presented in collaboration with the Morgan Library & Museum. This exhibition is made possible at the Morgan Library & Museum by lead corporate support from Morgan Stanley. Additional support is provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art; Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky; Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin M. Rosen; and Sean and Mary Kelly and Sean Kelly Gallery. This exhibition originated at the RISD Museum with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Scintilla Foundation, and the Robert Lehman Foundation, Inc. Additional publication support from the Vikram and Geetanjali Kirloskar Visiting Scholar in Painting Endowed Fund at the Rhode Island School of Design and Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

This autograph manuscript by Chopin, once owned by the pianist and composer Clara Schumann (18191896), is on view in J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library. Polonaise for piano, op. 53, in A-flat major was likely written in 1842 in the French village of Nohant, where Chopin spent summers with his partner Amantine Dupin (1804-1876), the French novelist known by her pen name George Sand. These breaks from city life provided a stable environment to... work and allowed Chopin to create some of his best- known music. This boldly patriotic piece is based on a dance from his native Poland. It has since become a core part of the piano repertoire. See what’s on view: www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/collections-spotlight Frédéric Chopin, 18101849. Polonaise for piano, op. 53, in A major : autograph manuscript, ca. 1842, Heineman MS 42. #MorganLibrary

With over 300 drawings by Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo, this collection is one of the strengths at the Morgan. John Marciari, Charles W. Engelhard Curator of Drawings and Prints, takes a close look at two beloved 18th-century "Punchinello" drawings by Domenico Tiepolo.

Reflection on language and the nature of writing has been at the core of Xu Bing's (@xubingart) art since the beginning of his career in China during the mid-1980s. "In The Living Word," Xu Bing explained, "the dictionary definition of niao (bird) is written on the gallery floor in the simplified text created by Mao. The niao characters then break away from the confines of the literal definition and take flight through the installation space. As they rise into the a...ir, the characters gradually change from the simplified text to standardized Chinese text and finally to the ancient Chinese pictograph for 'bird.' The characters are rainbow colored to create a magical, fairy-tale quality." The title of the installation, which was on view at the Morgan in 2011, points to the Buddhist inspiration that informs Xu Bing's work. "Buddhists believe," the artist wrote, "that 'if you look for harmony in the living word, then you will be able to reach Buddha; if you look for harmony in lifeless sentences, you will be unable to save yourself.' . . . My work and my method of thinking have been my search for the living word." The Living Word 3, July 19 through October 2, 2011, The Morgan Library & Museum, Photography by Graham S. Haber. 2021 Xu Bing. Courtesy of Xu Bing Studio The installation of The Living Word 3 is made possible by a donation from Susanna and Livio Borghese and further underwritten by Clement and Elizabeth Moore, Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky, and The Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund, in honor of Parker Gilbert and in appreciation of his many contributions to the Morgan Library & Museum. Generous support is also provided by the American Friends of the Shanghai Museum, with additional assistance from the DeBevoise Calello Family, Helen Little, and Xiling Group. See more

This letter is an attempt to enforce gun control in Paris. King Charles IX had attained his majority just a few weeks before, and this was one of his first official acts. He instructs the aldermen to gather up firearms and deposit them in the Hotel de Ville for safekeeping. No one was to be seen on the street carrying a pistol, dagger, or harquebus. Although the aldermen tried to maintain law and order, gangs roamed the city at night singing psalms and brandishing their weap...ons. This letter was countersigned by Claude II de Laubespine. On View // Poetry and Patronage: The Laubespine-Villeroy Library Rediscovered . . . Charles IX, King of France (15501574) Letter to Claude Marcel and Jehan Le Sueur, countersigned by Claude II de Laubespine September 2, 1563. The Morgan Library & Museum; MA unassigned. Photography by Janny Chiu . Poetry and Patronage: The Laubespine-Villeroy Library Rediscovered is made possible by T. Kimball Brooker, with assistance from Roland and Mary Ann Folter; Jamie Kleinberg Kamph, Stonehouse Bindery; Jonathan and Megumi Hill; Martha J. Fleischman; and Professor and Mrs. Eugene S. Flamm. See more

"Today, in the third millennium AD, the commonly-used designations in the West are "Middle East" and "Near East." In order to briefly chart this terminological journey, we should turn to the beginnings of the modern discipline of Western Asian archaeology, the history of which is deeply intertwined with that of colonialism." From the Morgan Blog | A Brief History of Archaeology and Colonialism: https://bit.ly/3a2Lbs4

The sun kept stooping stooping low The Hills to meet him rose On his part what Transaction! On their part what Repose!... Deeper and deeper grew the stain Opon the window pane Thicker and thicker stood the feet Until the Tyrian Was crowded dense with Armies So gay so Brigadier That I felt martial stirrings Who once the Cockade wore Charged from my chimney corner But nobody was there! Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson! The sun kept stooping stooping low Poem sent to Susan Dickinson, signed and dated ca. 1860 The Morgan Library & Museum, purchased as the gift of William H. McCarthy, Jr., and Frederick B. Adams, Jr., 1953 #emilydickinson #otd

Every holiday season, the Morgan displays Charles Dickens’s original manuscript of A Christmas Carol in J. Pierpont Morgan's Library. Dickens wrote his iconic tale in a six-week flurry of activity beginning in October 1843 and ending in time for Christmas publication. He had the manuscript bound in red goatskin leather as a gift for his solicitor, Thomas Mitton. The manuscript then passed through several owners before Pierpont Morgan acquired it in the 1890s. Beg...inning a few years ago, the Morgan started advancing the Christmas Carol manuscript by one page each season. This year the manuscript is open to Scrooge’s vituperative remarks about Christmas, which, he believes, is nothing more than a time for finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer. For the obstinate Scrooge, every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should! Scrooge’s nephew Fred counters with a spirited vindication of the holiday, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in [his] pocket: [it is] the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts, freely. Now On View in J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library. . . . : Graham S. Haber See more