Collections Spotlight, Fall 2024

Objects on view in J. Pierpont Morgan’s library reflect the past, present, and future of the collections in four curatorial departments, comprising illuminated manuscripts from the medieval and renaissance eras, five hundred years of printed books, literary manuscripts and correspondence, as well as printed music and autograph manuscripts by composers. These selections, which rotate three times a year, provide an opportunity for Morgan curators to spotlight individual items, to consider their historical and aesthetic contexts, and to tell the stories behind these artifacts and their creators. Here are some highlights of the rotation currently on view in the East Room, as well as the special installation in the Rotunda entitled Astrology, Politics, and Abolition in Civil War Americana, featuring items from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

Libro viejo de la fundación de Cuzco (Old Book of the Foundation of Cuzco) Manuscript, [1534–37]. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, before 1913; MA 155

Passenger list for the ship Speedwell of London, May 30, 1656. Purchased, ca. 1903; MA 416

A MEETING OF CONQUISTADORS
This sobering manuscript records the activity of the first colonial council established in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire, months after Spanish forces led by Francisco Pizarro invaded the city. The page on the left bears the signatures of thirty-eight conquistadors, including Pizarro’s brother, Hernando, and the Greek cartographer Pedro de Candia. With their names they pledged a staggering tribute of gold and silver to King Charles V—much of it collected as ransom for the captured Inca high priest Villac Umu. There is no record of what became of the treasure. It was likely stolen again by Pizarro to consolidate power within his ranks and further Spain’s brutal campaign to subjugate the Inca people.

UNWELCOME FRIENDS
When a group of Quaker colonists arrived in Boston aboard the Speedwell in September 1656, they were immediately arrested and thrown into prison. A Q next to their names on the ship’s passenger log, displayed here, identified them to Puritan authorities as members of the Religious Society of Friends and therefore heretics. Eleven weeks later, all eight were deported back to England. Undeterred, six of them returned the following year, this time settling in present-day Rhode Island and New York, where they were met with greater tolerance. The English crown eventually forced the Massachusetts Bay Colony to repeal its anti-Quaker laws, but only after several Friends were judicially executed for not conforming to Puritan beliefs.

Frederica St. John Orlebar (1839–1928), Illustrated Ballads and Poems Autograph manuscript, 1858. Purchased on the Macomber Fund, 2024; MA 23877

Langston Hughes (1901–1967), Letter to William Grant Still (1895–1978), Cleveland, January 18, 1937. Purchased on the Drue Heinz Fund for Twentieth-Century Literature, 2020; MA 23731
Used by permission ot The Estate of Langston Hughes and International Literary Properties LLC

CHRISTMAS VERSES
A testament to three remarkable Englishwomen, this lavish album was clearly a labor of love presented to a cherished aunt on Christmas. It is opened to a poem by Felicia Hemans (1793–1835), one of the most popular poets of her day and evidently a favorite of the album’s creator, Frederica Orlebar. Orlebar hand-copied and illustrated six of Hemans’s poems for her aunt, the botanist and author Frances Stackhouse Acton (1794–1881). “The Child and Dove” evokes nostalgia for the beauty and innocence of childhood, a familiar theme among Romantic writers and one that must have appealed to the nineteen-year-old artist.

“A NEW MUSICAL TYPEWRITER”
In this letter to the Black American composer William Grant Still, Langston Hughes describes one of the many literary-musical collaborations of his career. In 1936 Hughes began work on the libretto for Still’s opera Troubled Island, dramatizing the rise and fall of Jean-Jacques Dessalines (1758–1806), Haiti’s revolutionary leader turned dictator. Hughes writes that their contributions must be “as integrated as possible. I am beginning to wish we were one person, like Wagner, so that our creativeness would be a single powerful force, indisoluble [sic] in its beauty and strength.” Hughes and Still, however, parted ways before the opera was finished. Verna Arvey later completed the libretto, and the work premiered in 1949 at the New York City Opera.

William Bonde (act. 1526–27), Pilgrimage of Perfection, London: Richard Pynson, 1526. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1901; PML 5007

Jean Jacques Boissard (1528–1602), Habitus variarum orbis gentium (Dress of Various Peoples of the World), [Cologne?: Gaspard Rutz?], 1581. Gift of Paul Mellon, 1979; PML 76102

PILGRIMAGE OF PROVENANCE
William Bonde, a monk at the Abbey of Syon, wrote this work as a guide to pastoral care and the key aspects of Christian faith (prior to Henry VIII’s break from the Roman Church). This is one of the few copies of the first edition to survive the English Reformation, likely due to its royal provenance: the book was first owned by Henry VIII, whose signature is on the last page, before it passed to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset (1500–1552), the brother of Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour (ca. 1508–1537) and uncle to King Edward VI (15371553). The book was then owned by Edward’s half sister and successor, Queen Mary I of England (reigned 1553–58), who signed her name below the woodcut of St. Bridget.

FASHION FORWARD
Boissard’s series of engravings is among the earliest European works devoted to regional styles of clothing. This volume contains about one hundred and eighty different costumes, depicted for the most part on figures representing wealthy European men and women; only a few of the plates illustrate the sartorial traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean, Western Asia, India, and Africa. Boissard had little firsthand knowledge of non-European subjects and often relied on images by other artists. Although Boissard’s figures could be described as generic, he made an exception in this plate, which is devoted to regions associated with modern-day Turkey: the figure at the center is Mihrimah Sultan (1522–1578), the daughter of Suleiman I.

The Adventures of Old Dame Trot and Her Comical Cat, London: William Darton and Son, ca. 1830. Gift of Elisabeth Ball, 1965; PML 85080

Jane Auer Bowles (1917–1973), Two Serious Ladies, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943. The Carter Burden Collection of American Literature; PML 184251

THAT DARN CAT!
The production of books for childrens’ “edutainment” exploded in the early 1800s, mixing whimsical stories with moral instruction. The lessons embedded in the series of books featuring the character Old Dame Trot, however, are not immediately apparent. Each time Dame Trot goes on an errand, she comes home to find her cat involved in an outlandish activity, such as teaching mice to dance, sewing a dress, smoking, or fencing with the dog. Ultimately, the cat kills a rat and curtsies when Dame Trot compliments their dressmaking skills. Darton’s 1830 edition, shown here, capitalized on the continuing popularity of The Comic Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard and Her Dog, first published by a rival printer in 1805.

JANE BOWLES’S FIRST (AND LAST) NOVEL
An older and a younger woman living unconventional, itinerant lives is how one might describe the premise of Bowles’s 1943 novel. “Unconventional” and “itinerant” can also describe its author, whose legendary spirit and atypical love life followed her in her meanderings from Long Island to Morocco and beyond. Bowles was in her mid-twenties when she wrote Two Serious Ladies. Tennessee Williams called it his favorite book, destined to become a classic. It was Bowles’s first and last novel. Her subsequent publications—a few short stories and one play—were praised for their style and fearlessness, but Bowles’s modest output disappointed her fans (as Truman Capote carped, “My only complaint . . . is that she publishes so infrequently”).

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) Erwartung (Expectation), op. 17 Autograph manuscript, 1909. Mary Flagler Cary Music Collection, 1983
Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951), Pierrot lunaire (Moonstruck Pierrot), op. 21 Autograph manuscript, 1912. Robert Owen Lehman Collection, on deposit
Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951), Self-Portrait, ca. 1900–1919, charcoal on paper. Gift of Robert Owen Lehman
Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles

NIGHTMARES OR HORRIFYING REALITY?
The libretto for Erwartung was written by Marie Pappenheim, a Viennese poet and physician familiar with Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories of female hysteria. The story follows a distraught woman who wanders through a forest in search of her lover, stumbling on his corpse. To underscore her extreme anxiety, Schoenberg set her expressionistic monologue within a huge orchestra of virtuosic capabilities. Composed quickly during the late summer of 1909, the work did not premiere until 1924 in Prague with Alexander Zemlinsky, Schoenberg’s brother-in-law, conducting. In 2024, a century later, a virtual reality game based on Erwartung was released, featuring Schoenberg’s score.

MUSIC AT THE EDGE
Pierrot lunaire is a song cycle of twenty-one poems divided into three sections of seven poems each, for voice, piano, flute (alternating piccolo), clarinet (alternating bass clarinet), violin (alternating viola), and cello. Schoenberg selected the poems from a collection by Albert Giraud (translated from French into German by Otto Erich Hartleben) about the antics of Pierrot, the commedia dell’arte clown. No two musical treatments of the text use the same combination of instruments, which throughout the work mimic the sound of cabaret music. The use of Sprechstimme, or “speech-song,” for setting the voice part, heightens its expressionist intent; the rhythm is specified, but the pitches, indicated in the score by X’s as note heads, are approximate.

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG, COMPOSER AND PAINTER, TURNS 150
The Morgan houses many of the most significant works of Arnold Schoenberg, one of twentieth-century music’s defining modernist voices, including Gurre-Lieder, Chamber Symphony no. 1, Moses und Aron, and Das Buch der hängenden Gärten. Joining celebrations around the world for the composer’s 150th year, we feature two works that defined his early impact, Erwartung (1909) and Pierrot lunaire (1912). During these same years, Schoenberg was almost equally focused on his work as a visual artist. He produced a considerable body of drawings and paintings between 1908 and 1910, exhibiting his work at Wassily Kandinsky’s Blaue Reiter exhibition in 1911.

 

Gospel Book, in Latin France, Tours, Abbey of St. Martin, mid-ninth century MS M.860, fols. 95v–96r. Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1952

A CAROLINGIAN MASTERPIECE
The Holy Roman emperor Charlemagne (ca. 742–814) made a conscious effort to revitalize learning and the study of the liberal arts during his reign. Under his directive, scribes working at important monastic centers began to produce deluxe editions of Gospel Books and Bibles. This Gospel Book from Tours provides a stunning example of the resurgence in luxury manuscript production. At left, gold letters on a purple background indicate the beginning of Luke’s Gospel. The words are surrounded by an ornate border of gold and silver, now tarnished. At right, a lavishly decorated initial Q begins the Latin text of the gospel. Writing in gold, the scribe combined Roman letterforms with interlace ornaments, transforming the words into a work of art.

Book of Hours, in Latin Belgium, Bruges (?), ca. 1525–30, illuminated by the Master of the David Scenes in the Grimani Breviary, MS M.1175, fols. 124v–125r. Melvin R. Seiden Collection, 2011

Richard de Fournival (act. 1246–60), Bestiaire d’amour (Bestiary of Love), in Old French, Northern Italy, ca. 1290, MS M.459, fols. 21v–22r. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1911

THE OFFICE OF THE DEAD
Books of Hours contain prayers that were intended to be recited by laypeople at set times throughout the day. The pages shown here begin the Office of the Dead, a cycle of prayers for the souls of the recently deceased. At left, a group of hooded monks administer funeral rites; beneath them, a mass grave is being expanded, likely for victims of a recent plague. At right, a despondent apothecary inhabits an initial D, formed out of skulls and bones. A dance of death scene is featured below, with skeletons, a fashionable lady, and a bishop, illustrating that death affects all levels of society. The manuscript’s red velvet pouch was likely produced in the eighteenth century.

WORDS OF WARNING
The Bestiary of Love is a plea from a lover to his unsympathetic lady. The text refashions the traditional animal lore of medieval bestiaries by applying the lessons of nature to the lover’s plight. At left, two mariners disembark and build a fire on the back of a whale, which they have mistaken for an island. The awakened whale plunges downward and drowns the sailors. The author compares this tale to his misguided belief that the lady shared his passion. The fox playing dead at top right, and the vulture at bottom right both represent tricksters who merely pretend to be in love. The moral portrayed here suggests that which seems most trustworthy should be trusted least.

Pierre Gringore (ca. 1475–1538?), Les abus du monde (The Abuses of the World), in French, France, Rouen, ca. 1510, MS M.42, fols. 12v–13r. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1899

Amitābha Sutra (Discourse on the Land of Bliss) China, ca. 1775 MS W.69. Bequest of Julia Parker Wightman, 1994

FEMMES FATALES
While many versions of The Abuses of the World survive in printed form, this is the only known copy executed by hand. This manuscript was likely commissioned as a gift for King James IV of Scotland. The author, Pierre Gringore, made direct connections between the women of his time and female monsters from ancient myths. At left is the Gorgon Medusa, accompanied by her sisters, Stheno and Euryale; serpents teem from their fashionable headdresses. A single glance from the Gorgons could turn men into stone, as evidenced by the petrified forms dotting the landscape. Monsters with women’s faces reinforced negative gender stereotypes and perpetuated the medieval view that women were dangerous, and their behavior should be regulated.

THE TREE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
The Buddha achieved enlightenment beneath the large, spade-shaped leaves of the bodhi tree. Revered by Buddhists, the tree was propagated by believers throughout Asia. In China, artists used bodhi leaves to create paintings for albums like this, thereby infusing their images with sacred power. Written in gold ink against a deep blue background is a Buddhist sutra, or scripture, that describes the wonders of Sukhavati, or the Land of Bliss, an uncorrupted realm inhabited by enlightened beings. The leaf shown here depicts one such being resting on a fantastic animal companion whose sumptuous tail echoes the leaf’s curvilinear silhouette. The brightly painted bodhi leaf was pasted into a section of cutout paper and framed with yellow silk brocade.

Broughton’s Monthly Planet Reader and Astrological Journal 1, nos. 5 (August 1860) and 6 (September 1860), Philadelphia: L. D. Broughton, 1860. Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History; GLC09014

The American Anti-Slavery Almanac, for 1839, New York: published for the American Anti-Slavery Society by S. W. Benedict, [1838]. Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History; GLC05826

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A VISIONARY AQUARIUS
Broughton’s Monthly Planet Reader and Astrological Journal, edited by the Philadelphia-based astrologer Luke Broughton (1828–1898), focused on political horoscopes. A comment in the September 1860 issue on the upcoming presidential election asserts that, as an Aquarius, “Mr. Lincoln has a rather fortunate Nativity for becoming popular,” but foretells that his Democratic opponent, Stephen Douglas (1813–1861), will be elected. Political astrologers were also consulted for the outcomes of battles and military campaigns by Northern and Southern inquirers alike. The abundance of controversial predictions led to a Pennsylvania statute prohibiting fortune telling in 1861, causing Broughton to relocate his magazine’s headquarters to New York.

AN ABOLITIONIST ALMANAC
The American Anti-Slavery Almanac was published annually from 1836 to 1843 by the American Anti-Slavery Society, a nationwide abolitionist group led chiefly by Frederick Douglass with members such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Their almanac not only compiled calendars and natural astrology information but also featured antislavery literature, advertisements, and artwork. Regular use of the almanac promoted the visibility of the antislavery cause and informed the general public about enslaved people’s rebellions and relevant political speeches. Rather than rely on an emotional imperative to awaken the public to the need for abolition, editors presented organized factual information, true to the almanac genre, to aid in legitimizing the abolition movement.