Skip to main content

Link to Smithsonian homepage

Smithsonian Music

Main menu

  • Calendar
  • Listen
  • Learn
    • Ask Smithsonian
    • Collections Spotlights
    • Music Stories
  • Watch
  • Blog

John Pierpont Morgan Memorial--Libra

Object Details

Luce Center Label
John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) was a prominent Gilded Age financier. When Pierpont died in 1913, Paul Manship began working on a memorial tablet commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which eventually received almost forty percent of Pierpont’s collection of medieval and Renaissance art. This uniface cast represents one of the signs of the zodiac that line the sides of the Morgan tablet, which appears in the southeast wall of the museum’s vestibule. Manship intended these figures to represent the “Cycle of the Year” or the “Compass of Life.”
Data Source
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Artist
Paul Manship, born St. Paul, MN 1885-died New York City 1966
Date
1915-1920
Credit Line
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist
Medium
bronze
Dimensions
10 x 3 1/2 x 1/8 in. (25.5 x 9.0 x 0.2 cm)
Type
Sculpture-Relief
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page .
International media Interoperability Framework
IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.
View manifest View in Mirador Viewer

Link to Smithsonian homepage

  • About
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
Back to Top