J. Pierpont Morgan left no written record of how he wanted his library-within- the- Library to look or the cultural values he wished it to convey. But we know he was satisfied with the showplace Charles Follen McKim delivered. The completed East Room is an American homage to European creativity and a conspicuous display of wealth. To the London Times correspondent who visited in 1908, it was paradise. “Here, at last,” they wrote, “is the ideal library, the ideal setting for noble books.”
A sixteenth-century tapestry serves as the focal point of the room. Several of the bookcases swing open to reveal hidden staircases that provide access to the second and third tiers of shelves. Above it all is an extravagant ceiling. But surrounded as they are by this profusion of ornament, it is the books—some fourteen thousand of them—that define the room.