The Bard Or Not the Bard? That Is The Question.

By Nancy Mattoon

Cobbe Portrait.
Claimed to be a portrait of William Shakespeare
done while he was alive, ca 1610.
(Images Courtesy of Morgan Library and Museum.)

What some experts claim is the one and only portrait of Shakespeare painted during his lifetime is the centerpiece of a new exhibit at the Morgan Library and Museum. The painting was unveiled in 2009 by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, and according to the Morgan, "Recent technical analysis—as well as the portrait's superior quality—has established it as the original of a long series of portraits traditionally identified as Shakespeare."

The Jacobean painting had hung unrecognized for centuries in an Irish country house belonging to the Cobbe family. Both this portrait and a recently identified portrait of Shakespeare's patron Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, were part of the estate of Archbishop Charles Cobbe (1686-1765). According to the exhibit, "The Cobbe portrait has significant resemblances in costume and design to Martin Droeshout's engraving of Shakespeare published in the First Folio (1623), and bears a Latin inscription, taken from a poem by Horace, addressed to a playwright."

Martin Droeshout's Engraving of Shakespeare, 1623.

All of which sounds pretty convincing, and it has convinced some very respected Shakespearean scholars that the Cobbe portrait is the real deal. (Chiefly the Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stanley Wells, the Head of Education for the Trust, Paul Edmondson, and Mark Broch, the curator of the Cobbe Collection.) On the other hand, several scholars immediately took exception to the identification of the subject of the portrait as Shakespeare, most notably Katherine Duncan-Jones, professor of English at Oxford University, and Tarnya Cooper, the curator of 16th-century portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London, who curated that institution's 2006 Searching for Shakespeare exhibition.

And even the Morgan curator, Declan Kiely, was guarded when asked about the Cobbe portrait: "The position the Morgan takes is that the Cobbe portrait is authentic—that is, it is a painting dating from 1610 and depicts a sitter who may be identified as Shakespeare." The Cobbe portrait is, in fact, a dead ringer for another "Shakespeare portrait" that has been branded a fake. Known as the "Janssen Portrait," this painting has been called "the earliest proven example of a genuine portrait altered to look like Shakespeare," by Erin Blake, Curator of Art and Special Collections at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

The altered balding hairline in the "original"
Janssen portrait,
as it appeared when purchased by the
Folger Shakespeare Library in the early 1930s.

Blake notes that the Folger "owns about forty painted portraits of Shakespeare (including miniatures), and none of them are authentic portraits from life. About half were never intended to be considered life-portraits, but are honest representations of the artist's conception of Shakespeare. These are sometimes known as 'memorial portraits' and were particularly popular in the Victorian period. The rest are fakes, being either pictures once asserted to be Shakespeare from life but actually painted in recent times, or genuine portraits from Shakespeare’s era that were later altered to look Shakespearean."

The Janssen portrait after 1988 restoration.

Fake Shakespeare portraits are a virtual cottage industry. According to the Wikipedia article on Portraits of Shakespeare, "Within four decades of its foundation in 1856, upwards of 60 portraits were offered for sale to the National Portrait Gallery purporting to be of Shakespeare, but there are only two definitively accepted as portraying him, both of which are posthumous. One is the engraving that appears on the cover of the First Folio (1623) and the other is the sculpture that adorns his memorial in Stratford upon Avon, which dates from before 1623."

The bottom line on Shakespeare portraits is that:

A. There is no physical description of Shakespeare in existence.

B. There is no evidence Shakespeare ever sat for a portrait.

Nevertheless, just as there are scholars who are convinced that somebody else wrote Shakespeare, there are scholars who are convinced that somebody sat Shakespeare down and painted his portrait. But they can't agree on exactly who it was, in either case.

The Changing Face of Shakespeare continues through May 1, 2011 at the Morgan Library and Museum.
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Degas In The Raw At The Morgan Library

By Nancy Mattoon

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)

Self-Portrait in a Brown Vest, 1856.
Oil on paper.
(Image Courtesy Of The Morgan Library and Museum.)

A great work of art, whether painting, sculpture, literature, poetry, or play, always appears complete, seamless, and effortless. The spectator knows that the artist spent countless hours perfecting the piece, but that hard work never shows in the end result. The illusion should be that the work is a perfect jewel, polished to a high sheen with no hints of early rough cuts, drafts, sketches, corrections, or improvements. The viewer should see the great and powerful Wizard of Oz, without any glimpses of the man behind the curtain.

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
Standing Man in a Bowler Hat, ca. 1870.
Oil paint thinned with turpentine, on brown paper.
(Image Courtesy Of The Morgan Library and Museum.)

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
The New Orleans Cotton Exchange, 1873.
Oil On Canvas.
(Image Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.)

But seeing the handwritten manuscript, the first draft with strike-throughs and erasures, or the rough sketch can make us appreciate all the more a finished work that has become so iconic it is almost taken for granted. The Morgan Library and Museum has mounted a small exhibition consisting of two rare books of sketches and twenty works on paper by the great French Impressionist, Edgar Degas (1834-1917). This show is an extraordinary opportunity to see a great master in the process of creating his work, although nearly a century has passed since his death.

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
Three Studies of a Dancer, ca. 1880.
Black chalk, Conté crayon (?), and pink chalk,
heightened with white chalk, on blue paper faded to light brown.

(Image Courtesy Of The Morgan Library and Museum.)


Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, 1880-1, cast circa 1922.
Painted bronze with muslin and silk.
(Image Courtesy of The Tate Gallery.)

These preliminary studies can be easily recognized as the raw material for some of the artist's greatest and most famous oils on canvas and bronze sculptures. They offer insight into the mind of Degas, the way in which he painstakingly observed his artistic subjects, and his ability to recall and recreate scenes he first recorded years before they finally reappeared in his finished works.

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
Four Jockeys on Horseback, ca. 1868, reworked ca. 1878.
Graphite, with stumping, on tracing paper mounted to board.
(Image Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum.)

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
The Racecourse, ca. 1876.
Oil On Canvas.
(Image Courtesy Artchive.com)

Degas was always a man apart from the rest of the Impressionists. His sensibility was darker and much more detached. Though as superb in his use of color and light as any of his peers, linear divisions and precise draftsmanship always shaped Degas's canvases, unlike the softly billowing whirls of Monet or Renoir. His subjects were viewed with an almost clinical eye, and exacting observations of human or animal anatomy defined every figure.

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
Study of a Seated Woman, 1868–69.
Oil paint thinned with turpentine, over graphite, on tan paper.

(Image Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum.)

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
Interior, Ca. 1868.
Oil On Canvas.
(Image courtesy of The Philadelphia Museum of Art.)

The unbridled joie de vivre found in much of Impressionist art is absent from his work. His interest was in the back-breaking rehearsals of the "little rats" in the corps de ballet, not in the star turns of the prima ballerina. He depicted the tension and apprehension of horses and jockeys before a race, rather than the celebration in the winner's circle. Even his early self-portraits, two of which are featured in the Morgan show, are remarkable for their clear-eyed observation of a young gent with a too long nose and drooping eyelids. Photoshopping would never have been Edgar Degas's cup of tea.

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
Mademoiselle Bécat at the Café des Ambassadeurs,
Drawn 1877, Revised 1885.
Pastel over lithograph.
(Image Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum.)

Although a small exhibition, the Morgan show, Degas: Drawings and Sketchbooks, spans over 40 years of the artist's career. One of the sketchbooks here is from Degas's first trip to Italy as an art student, while the other is from a period marking the height of his fame as an established painter in Paris. The works on paper cover the years from 1856 through 1892, depicting the complete evolution of the artist's work over the years. "As a medium, drawing often provides a more personal and intimate glimpse of an artist’s creative process than either painting or sculpture, and the works on view in this exhibition are no exception," says William M. Griswold, director of The Morgan Library and Museum.

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
Sketchbook, ca. 1880 and after. Contains 21 drawings on 43 leaves.
Chiefly graphite, with touches of charcoal
and a few leaves executed in blue chalk; bound in tan linen.
(Image Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum.)

Edgar Degas was a notoriously secretive man, believing "the artist must live alone, and his private life must remain unknown." Misanthropic and difficult, he never married. He was more than a little snobbish, actively disdaining both Protestants and Jews, and politically extremely conservative. Aristocratic and independently wealthy, he often held back his completed paintings for years, exhibiting and selling them on his own idiosyncratic timetable.

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
Sketchbook, ca. 1880 and after. Contains 21 drawings on 43 leaves.
Chiefly graphite, with touches of charcoal
and a few leaves executed in blue chalk; bound in tan linen.
(Image Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum.)

It is doubtful Degas would have approved of his raw sketches being displayed in public at all, much less in a museum gallery and an online exhibition open to a worldwide audience. But unlike learning the sleight of hand behind a dazzling magic trick, seeing the plotting and planning behind these great works doesn't spoil the effect. Knowing that they percolated for decades in the artist's mind only makes the viewer marvel all the more at the effortless illusion of Degas's finished masterpieces.
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The Feminists and the Financier: The Ladies Who Built J. P. Morgan's Library

Belle Da Costa Greene, 1911.
Image courtesy of the Morgan Library

In the 1890s, financier J. Pierpont Morgan began building a collection of art, rare books, manuscripts, and artifacts that would surpass anything previously known in the United States. In 1902, he commissioned Charles McKim, the nation's most prominent architect, to build a library to house his treasures. There remained, however, the problem of organizing his grwoing acquisitions, which had until that time been stored in the basement of his Madison Avenue mansion. Enter his nephew, Junius, a student at Princeton and an aesthete much interested in art and books.

J. P. Morgan, 1902. Image courtesy of the Morgan Library

Junius had made the acquaintance of a young librarian at Princeton, Belle Da Costa Greene, who was a knowledgeable cataloguer with a particular interest in old and rare books. He brought the young woman, then barely 20, to meet his formidable uncle on a fateful day in 1905. The senoir Morgan, impressed by the young woman's intelligence--and no doubt attracted by her beauty--hired her to put his collection in order. Belle accepted his offer, and spent the next three years cataloguing treasures that would make any librarian weak with envy.

Portrait of Belle by Paul-Cesar Helleu.
Image from Wikicommons

Bellle Da Costa Greene was very much a self-made woman. Raised in Washington, D.C., in an educated, middle class family, she had not attended college but hadreceived all of her library training on the job at Princeton University. She was, by all account, extremely intelligent, shrewd, vivacious, socially adept, independent, charming, and beautiful. She also had a secret: she was an African-American who was "passing" as white. Her father was Richard Greener, the first African-American to graduate from Harvard and the dean of the law school at Howard University. Greener and Belle's mother, Genevieve, has separated when she was a child. The very light-skinned Genevieve dropped the "r" from her prominent husband's last name and began to pass herself and her children as white, not because she was ashamed--she herself was a daughter of Washington's black bourgeoisie--but because she pragmatically realized they would have far more opportunities open to them if they were believed to be white. Belle added "Da Costa" to her name (her original middle name was Marion) and put it about that she was of Portuguese descent, accounting for her olive complexion and curly dark hair.

By 1908, Belle had won Morgan's confidence in her knowledge and abilities, and he began sending her to Europe to purchase books, and especially illuminated manuscripts, for his collection. Belle became a major figure in the international art scene: already strikingly beautiful, she dressed fashionably, declaring famously, "Just because I am a librarian doesn't mean I have to dress like one." She sought to learn from prominent scholars, including Sidney Cockerell and Bernard Berenson, the latter of whom she counted mong her lovers.

The Da Costa Hours. Image courtesy of the Morgan Library.

When J. P. Morgan died in 1913, he left Belle $50,000--the equivalent of $800,000 in today's money--effectively making her financially independent for life. Fortunately his son, Jack, recognized Belle's worth to the Morgan collection and asked her to stay on and to continue acquiring treasures. In 1924, Jack Morgan established the Morgan Library as a public reference library and art collection, and named Belle as its director. She held that position for the next 24 years, until her reitrement in 1948.

Given the depth, breadth, and stature of the Morgan Collection, it is difficult to overstate Belle's influence on American art and antiquarian book world. Her acquisitions and stewardship continue to benefit us today, as seen in the recent manuscript exhibitions at the Morgan.

She was not the only woman in a prominent position at the Morgan. Bookbinder Marguerite Duprez Lahey kept a much lower profile, but was responsible for the luxurious bindings and solander cases that housed many of Morgan's finest books and manuscripts. A friend of Belle Greene, she first began working for Morgan in 1911, and continued to do so, nearly excelusively for over 30 years. A graduate of Brooklyn and Adelphi College, she served a two-year apprenticeship in at New York's Old Chelsea Bindery and went on to study bookbinding with Paris masters, particularly Jules Domont. Little seems to be known of her life outside her work: She was fron Virginia, and a 1937 article in Time magazine describes her as "a slender blonde." It was noted with interest that she was left handed, often considered an impediment among artisans of her trade. Quietly toiling in her studio, she did all the work of binding herself, selecting an preparing the finest levant morocco, sewing the pages, pasting, mounting, pressing, tooling, and finishing the bindings. A 1937 exhibition at the Morgan showcased 150 of her creations for the library's manuscripts.

At a time when few women worked outside the home, and far fewer attained professional prominence, Belle and Marguerite rose to the heights of their chosen fields, gaining the respect of their collegaues, competitors, and patrons. It is a pity so few know of them today. I was frankly appalled that I had never heard of Belle Da Costa Greene when I was in library school--talk about an inspiring role model. A recent biography, An Illuminated Life, will perhaps raise awareness of her story, I highly recommend it.

Yale Exhibit Romances The Last Of The Gentleman Scholars

Pierre-Joseph Redoute, Plum Branches Intertwined, 1802-04, watercolor on vellum.

(Images Courtesy Of Yale Center For British Arts.)

When Charles Ryskamp was interviewed in 2004, he found the reporter's questions about his background so tedious he snapped: "I don't want this to be an obituary." Ryskamp needn't have worried. The one-time director of both the Morgan Library and Museum and the Frick Collection died on March 26, 2010, with the best possible remembrance of his life and career on display at the Yale Center For British Art. Varieties of Romantic Experience: Drawings from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp, an exhibit of 200 works from his private collection, opened six weeks before his death at age 81, and will run through April 25, 2010.

George Stubbs, A Sleeping Cheetah ("A Tyger"), 1788, mezzotint on wove paper.

Charles Ryskamp might well be the last of a dying breed: the gentleman scholar. At age 7, he began to organize, catalog, and label the books in his home library. By age 13 he was buying original art, and galleries and auction houses put him on their mailing lists. Collecting art was a lifelong passion, one he ceaselessly pursued for nearly 70 years. He obtained a first-rate education in English literature, earning a bachelor's degree from Calvin College, a master's degree and doctorate from Yale, and later, adding post-graduate work at Cambridge. (He became a full professor of English at Princeton in 1969, specializing in the work of English poet William Cowper.) But in art history he was entirely self-taught. With a good eye, a sharp mind, and a devoted heart, he created one of the finest privately held collections of drawings in the world.

Josephus Augustus Knip, River Landscape With Distant Cliffs, 1809, water color over graphite on wove paper with double framing lines in gray ink.

In the art world, Ryskamp's area of collecting was primarily English and European prints and drawings of the Romantic Era, or roughly 1789 to 1850. He gravitated towards well-established artists, such as Goya, Turner, Blake, and Durer, saying: ''If you look at the greatest masters, I think you just have a sense of quality, that's hard to analyze.'' His collecting was also governed by pragmatism. He concentrated on prints until the late 1950's, but when they became unaffordable, he moved on to lower-priced drawings. Later, as director of the Morgan and the Frick, he shifted his sights to acquisitions that would not compete with the works of either museum.

William John Thomas Collins, Cypresses At The Villa d'Este, Tivoli, 1838, pen and ink and watercolor over graphite on wove paper.

These limits placed on the collection were, ironically, what made it so important. His commitment to search out works not typically found in museums led Ryskamp to assemble over time one of the world's best collections of drawings from the Danish Golden Age. Rather than focusing on more expensive paintings, his emphasis on drawings allowed him to purchase works that were often overlooked by wealthier collectors and institutions. Ryskamp summed up his prized artworks this way: ''As I looked at what I had accumulated, these hundreds and hundreds of drawings, I realized that I had equally good collections for France, Germany, Holland, Denmark. And that was almost unheard of. I can't think of any museum which would have all well represented.''

Adolph Menzel, Carl Johan Arnold, ca.1848, graphite on wove paper.

Ryskamp hand-picked the 200 drawings in the Yale show, along with co-curator Matthew Hargraves. They represent about one-third of his total collection of works on paper. The show was the realization of a cherished dream: "I have never before known an exhibition to show Romantic drawings of all of these countries together. I have long hoped for such an exhibition, and it is a rare privilege to have this wish fulfilled." The breadth of subject matter on display is as amazing as the array of artists. The works are grouped by content, with sections covering land and sea, the natural world, religion, the human figure, and the imagination. Within each area are drawings by such heavy-hitters as Conelius Varley, Henry Fuseli, Caspar David Friedrich, Camille Corot, Eugene Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Johan Thomas Lundbye, and C.W. Eckersberg.

J.M.W. Turner, Shields Lighthouse, 1820-1830, (trial proof A), mezzotint on laid paper.

In an essay accompanying the show, Ryskamp emphasized his enduring dedication to the arts: "As much as possible I have devoted my life to the appreciation, study and teaching of art and literature." When asked for advice by a beginning art collector he said: ''I think you should go and look. And don't have a goal in mind.'' A life spent seeking out great art wherever he could find it enabled Charles Ryskamp to assemble a group of artworks that will inspire collectors for generations to come. And he added one last brush stroke without which the portrait of an art collector is incomplete: "I collect in order to give to others. I plan to share what I have collected as long as I live and, if possible, bequeath what is left of my collections to public institutions." The greater part of Charles Ryskamp's art collection has been donated to the Morgan Library.

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

Angels And Demons Reunited At Morgan Library

Hours of Catherine of Cleves, in Latin

Illuminated by the Master of Catherine of Cleves
The Netherlands, Utrecht, ca. 1440
(Images courtesy of Faksimile Verlag Luzern.)

The first page of Catherine's prayer book foreshadows her troubled marriage. Her coat of arms as the Duchess of Guelder is centered beneath the Virgin Mary. Traditionally, her husband's crest would be illustrated atop her coat of arms. But Catherine defiantly places an Ox-- the symbol of The House of Cleves--above the emblem. Catherine is pictured praying from her Book of Hours at lower left. Her ancestors' coats of arms decorate the corners of the pages.

It's every book lovers nightmare. In the 1850's, an unscrupulous book dealer, Jacques Techener, gets his hands on the most precious illuminated manuscript ever created in the Netherlands. A masterpiece among prayer books, labored over for countless hours 400 years before, is now in the possession of a greedy Frenchman without a conscience. He cold-bloodedly rips apart the volume's calfskin binding, shuffles the 738 pages, and puts 11 of the most beautiful leaves aside. (These are still lost to this day.) The rest he arbitrarily divides into two piles and sloppily rebinds. Then, most probably, he twirls his moustache like a melodrama villain, and pops out the celebratory champagne. Now he's got two manuscripts to sell instead of one. And sell them he did, one to the Belgian Duke of Arenberg, and the other to Adolphe de Rothschild. Apparently neither buyer noticed that Techener's vandalism had turned the manuscript's prayers into out-of-sequence gibberish--both were convinced they had purchased one-of-a-kind masterworks.

At right, St. Cornelius holds a horn--cornus in Latin--a pun on his name. St. Cyprian, holds the sword of his martyrdom. The border's birdcages may allude to Cornelius as patron saint of pets.

Fast forward to 1957, when the Duke's copy of what passes for The Hours of Catherine of Cleves is sold to a New York book dealer, who in turn sells it to a private collector. Then in 1963, the Rothschild copy of what they claim is The Hours of Catherine of Cleves is puchased by the Morgan Library. Morgan curator John Plummer finally uncovers Techener's century-old ruse: examining the Morgan's manuscript and the volume on loan from the private collector, he concludes they are two halves of the same book. Finally in 1970, the Morgan purchases the copy in private hands. Now both halves of the masterpiece could be reunited. But the only way to restore the proper order of the pages was to cut apart Techener's amateurish rebindings--which by this time were causing actual damage to the pages--and painstakingly determine the correct sequence. This the Morgan Library has done, and the result is an exhibit of the unbound pages, Demons And Devotions: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, first shown in a Dutch museum, and now on display at the Morgan's New York City home.

At left is a full-page miniature of the Creation of Eve. In a fecund Garden of Eden--with the apple tree at center atop a hill--God pulls Eve from the ribs of Adam. Eve's sinfulness will be cleansed through the purity of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ the Savior. These three are depicted at right.

The back-story of the book itself is matched by the intriguing story of its original owner. Catherine of Cleves (1417-1476) married Arnold, Duke of Egmond (1410-1473) in 1430. To say the marriage was unhappy would be a massive understatement. In a real-life version of The War of The Roses, the Duke grew so disenchanted with the Duchess that he disinherited her, along with their six children. (According to the royal rumor mill, the couple's only son, Adolf, had discovered his father was homosexual.) Catherine became determined to make her son the Duke of Egmond, and a six-year-long civil war erupted. Catherine and son Adolf imprisoned Arnold and forced his abdication in 1465. But Arnold's supporters freed him in 1471, and the tables were turned: the father imprisoned his son, and exiled his wife. In 1473 Arnold died, but still left his son languishing in prison. Arnold had illegally sold his Dukedom to his ally, Charles The Bold of Burgundy, thus ensuring Catherine and her children were left with nothing. Catherine herself died in exile in 1476 before she could see her son set free. Finally freed in 1477, Adolf died within the year.

St. Lawrence holds a gridiron, the instrument upon which he was fried to death. The border of eels and fishes is a sly reference to foods routinely prepared in the same manner.

The Mouth of Hell (manuscript detail)

The entrance to hell is depicted as a lion's mouth rimmed with claw-like teeth. Inside is a red hot furnace. Demons wheel the souls of the damned to this terrifying portal, and joyfully cast them into the realm of eternal torment. Above is the castle of death decorated with skulls. Its burning turrets are topped with heated cauldrons to boil unfortunate souls. Another hell mouth forms the domed roof.

Catherine of Cleves' legacy--her magnificent Book of Hours, daily prayers to the Virgin Mary --was created by an artist whose name is lost to the ages. He is known only as "The Master of Catherine of Cleves." Whoever he was, this writer-illustrator was far ahead of his time. He created 168 incredibly detailed miniatures--93 of which are on view at the Morgan--and a facing page of text for each. The miniatures are enhanced by elaborate borders which amount to still-lifes in their own right. No two are alike, and many contain visual references to the scenes depicted in the main illustrations. The borders' contents thus becomes an inside joke for savvy viewers. The Morgan has mounted a wonderful online exhibit which includes a digital facsimile of every page on display, with the ability to zoom in on the amazing details. What's more, many of the pages have annotations explaining their symbolism and significance. While not a substitute for seeing the actual pages, it certainly is the next best thing.

At left is St. Ambrose, famous for sermons that reconciled the most bitter enemies. The border depicts two natural enemies— the mussel and the crab—living in harmony. At right, St. Augustine holds a heart pierced by two arrows, a symbol of remorse for a dissipated youth. The border is formed of larger pierced hearts suspended on chains and held by angels and demons.

Demons And Devotions: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves opened on January 22, 2010 and continues through May 2 at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. Also on display is a new, leather bound facsimile of the manuscript which is available for purchase from German publisher Faksimile Verlag for a cool $15,000. A more reasonably priced softcover catalog is available from the Morgan for $85. A concurrent exhibit of 18 Flemish Books Of Hours will also be on view in the Morgan's Clare Eddy Thaw Gallery. These 18 volumes are intact, having thankfully been spared the avaricious desecration that befell Catherine of Cleves splendid volume. After May 2, 2010, the Morgan's conservators will determine how best to reassemble and rebind into one volume the shamefully separated halves of The Hours of Catherine of Cleves.

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

Morgan Library's Christmas Gift: Display Of Dickens Decisive Deletions