The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, founded by Pierpont Morgan

From the Collection:

Roger Bartlett

Bartlett is among the best-documented binders of the Restoration era. He originally worked in London but migrated to Oxford after the Great Fire of 1666. He worked at Oxford until his retirement, ca. 1690, and died in his native Watlington in 1712.

One of Bartlett's finest works is this Bible, bound using many of his documented tools in his characteristic cottage-roof pattern. The interesting fore edge painting, visible when the leaves are fanned, is a flower-wreathed portrait of a young woman. She is very likely the book's first owner, who signed her name on the title page as Mary Alston and as Mary Clayton, with the date 1678. The change in name in the inscription makes one suspect that this binding was a marriage present.

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Video

In conjunction with the film The Divine Jane: Reflections on Austen, the Morgan produced additional short films featuring each of the participants. In this video, Colm Tóibín describes the relationship between his latest novel Brooklyn and Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Click to play »

Rembrandt and Picasso, Mozart, Bob Dylan, Dickens and Hemingway, Gutenberg Bibles, and Babar the elephant, The Morgan Library & Museum is, in the words of The New York Times, "extra special, in a class of its own."

Located in midtown Manhattan at Madison Avenue and 36th Street, the Morgan houses one of the world's greatest collections of artistic, literary, and musical works, from ancient times to the medieval and Renaissance periods to the present day.

CORSAIR, the Morgan's online collection catalog, is available here.