Inside the Morgan: The Rotunda and East Room

By 1900, the renowned banker and philanthropist J. Pierpont Morgan began to envision a repository to house his collection of rare books and manuscripts and serve as a retreat. He eventually commissioned the eminent architect Charles Follen McKim to construct an elegant marble villa next to his home on Thirty-Sixth Street and Madison Avenue in New York City. Morgan was deeply engaged in the design of the structure and the decoration of its interiors, which paid homage to the great Roman villas of the Italian Renaissance. Once the building was completed in 1906, Morgan began spending the majority of his time there, continuing to embellish its rooms with exceptional works of art.

Today, J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library is the historic core of the Morgan Library & Museum. One of the best-preserved Gilded Age interiors in New York, it offers visitors a chance to enter the enclave of this legendary collector. Inside the Morgan: The Rotunda and East Room takes us into the principal spaces for visitors to Morgan’s haven, exploring the colorful, marble-clad Rotunda and the soaring, book-lined East Room, where he preserved and displayed his treasures.