inspiration for artists, writers, and composers for centuries. From the carving of ancient seals with
fearsome lions and mythical beasts, to the
depiction of the serpent in representations of
Biblical scenes by such luminaries as Albrecht
Dürer, to more recent portrayals of endearing
animal figures in children’s stories, such as
Babar and Winnie the Pooh, animals are
everywhere. Beginning March 2, The Morgan
Library & Museum will explore the
representation of animals—as symbols, muses,
moral teachers, talking creatures, and beloved
companions—in eighty works of art,
demonstrating the varied roles animals have
played in the hands of some of the most
renowned artists represented in the Morgan’s
collections. In the Company of Animals: Art, Literature, and Music at the Morgan will run
through May 20.
Press Contacts
Patrick Milliman
212.590.0310, pmilliman@themorgan.org
Alanna Schindewolf
212.590.0311, aschindewolf@themorgan.org2
Cyclops Grasping Inverted Lions, Rampant Lions
Framing His Head
Mesopotamia, Late Uruk period (ca. 3500-3100
B.C.)
Serpentine
Morgan Seal, no. 4
“Animals abound in art, literature, and music,” said William M. Griswold, director of The
Morgan Library & Museum. “Whether it is Albrecht Dürer’s iconic Adam and Eve, Edgar Allen
Poe’s unforgettable The Raven, or such seminal stories from our childhood as Jean de Brunhoff’s
Babar and E.B. White’s The Trumpet of the Swan, artists have employed animals throughout
history to communicate important ideas and themes. In the Company of Animals takes the visitor
on a delightful and informative tour of some the greatest of these works from the Morgan’s
superlative collections.”
SYMBOLS
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
— Emily Dickinson
Animals are not always simply animals. They can represent gods, saints, myths, sins,
temperaments, emotions, and ideas. Since ancient times, artists have repeatedly turned to animals
to address eternal questions of life and meaning.
The oldest work in the exhibition, a Mesopotamian
cylinder seal used to make an impression when rolled
over damp clay, is datable about 3500–3100 B.C. Lions
prowl across the surface of the inch-high engraved stone,
symbolizing the potential chaos of the natural world.
Order is restored, however, by the one-eyed hero who
grasps two lions upside-down. His domination over such
feared creatures adds to his strength and power.
The lion is one of many animals that make an appearance
in Joseph Haydn’s Creation, a musical evocation of
God’s creation of the world. The first edition on view
shows the “roaring” lion, as represented by bass trills;
the leaps of the “flexible tiger,” by ascending runs; and the jumping of the “nimble stag,”
conveyed by staccato sounds reminiscent of hunting horns. Haydn, who published this first
edition himself, considered Creation the “greatest work of my life.” 3
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)
Adam and Eve, 1504
Engraving on paper
Purchased as a gift of Eugene V. Thaw, S. Parker Gilbert,
Rodney B. Berens, Mrs. Oscar de la Renta, Elaine Rosenberg,
T. Kimball Brooker, George L. K. Frelinghuysen, and on the
Ryskamp Fund, the Edwin H. Herzog Fund, and the Lois and
Walter C. Baker Fund
The fall of Man as depicted in Albrecht Dürer’s masterful
engraving Adam and Eve, of 1504, is witnessed and aided by
animals. A serpent twists itself around a branch to offer Eve
the forbidden fruit as four creatures lie at the couple’s feet.
Though the references are obscure today, art historian Erwin
Panofsky noted that an educated person in the sixteenth
century would have easily recognized the moral connotations
and the temperaments (or humors) associated with each
animal: the elk, melancholic gloom; the rabbit, sanguine
sensuality; the cat, choleric cruelty; and the ox, phlegmatic
sluggishness.
Also on display is a letter in which Edgar Allen Poe sends a
last minute revision of the tenth and eleventh stanzas of “The
Raven” to John Augustus Shea of The New-York Daily
Tribune, where the poem appeared the very next day. This revision is the earliest surviving
portion of “The Raven” in the poet’s hand. Poe’s initial choice for his “bird of ill-omen”
representing “Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance” was a parrot. The parrot was, after all,
capable of speech, but Poe quickly decided that the raven was “infinitely more in keeping with
the intended tone” of the poem.
When describing the connection between his work and nature, Jackson Pollock famously
commented, “I am nature.” Pollock’s Untitled (Abstract Ram) dates about 1944, a time when the
artist incorporated Jungian theories of the unconscious and imagery of the American Southwest
into his work. The drawing is suggestive of a sheep-like animal with a circular horn, elongated
head and muzzle, and swirls of curly wool. 4
Fables of Æsop according to Sir Roger
L’Estrange, with fifty drawings by
Alexander Calder
Paris: Harrison of Paris; New York: Minton,
Balch and Company, 1931
Gift of Mrs. L.B. Wescott, 1976
© 2012 Calder Foundation, New York /
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
MORAL TEACHERS
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee
— Job 12:7
Foxes are considered sly, lambs gentle, and owls wise. We often make moral judgments about
animal behavior, and animals have long served as stand-ins for humans in moral tales, from
Aesop’s fables to Animal Farm.
Although Aesop is credited with many of the fables we
know today—The Tortoise and the Hare, for example—no
writings securely attributable to the sixth-century B.C.
Greek storyteller survive. The exhibition includes three
works related to Aesop, including the earliest known
manuscript of his life and fables, made in southern Italy in
the tenth or eleventh century. This manuscript also
contains the earliest known Greek translation of the
Fables of Bidpai, animal stories of Indian origin. Similarly
on view in the exhibition is a 1666 edition of the life and
fables of Aesop, lavishly illustrated by one of the most
accomplished animal and bird painters in seventeenthcentury England, Francis Barlow. The page on view
depicts Aesop surrounded by adoring animals listening to
one of his tales. Finally, a 1931 edition of Aesop’s fables
combines stories collected by the seventeenth-century
English author Roger L’Estrange with fifty illustrations by American artist Alexander Calder.
First published in 1667, Charles Perrault’s Tales from Times Past, with Morals: Tales of Mother
Goose remains our source for many traditional fairy tales. Though fairy tales had been told for
centuries, Perrault was the first to have them written down and published. On display is the
manuscript page and illustration that tells the tale of Puss in Boots, who uses his industriousness
and wits to help his penniless owner marry a princess. 5
Jean de Brunhoff (1899-1937)
Dummy with illustration for page nine of Histoire de
Babar, le petit éléphant
Ink and watercolor drawing with handwritten text on paper
Gift of Laurent, Mathieu, and Thierry de Brunhoff, and
purchased with the assistance of The Florence Gould
Foundation and the Acquisitions Fund, Fellows
Endowment Fund, Gordon N. Ray Fund, and the Heineman
Fund, 2004
Photography: Schecter Lee
TALKING CREATURES
“An animal is something you feel like talking to.”
— A child’s definition of an animal (1951)
Storytellers have long used talking animals to highlight human foibles. Unlike the animals in
fables and fairy tales, which maintain their animal characteristics, the talking creatures in this
section of the exhibition blur the distinction between animal and human.
George Orwell had a difficult time finding a publisher for Animal Farm, his tale of a utopia gone
wrong, at the end of WWII. As Orwell himself noted, “the fable does follow…so completely the
progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia….” He
further surmised, “it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs.”
A first edition of the novel (eventually published in 1945) shows Orwell’s original subtitle,
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story.
A life-long equestrian, Anna Sewell was appalled by the way horses, especially working horses,
were often treated by their owners. She said that her purpose in writing Black Beauty, her only
novel, was “to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses.” Sewell’s
endeavor would appear to have been successful—the novel remains one of the best-selling books
of all time. According to the title page of the 1877 first edition on view, the novel is translated
from the “original equine.”
“It was a dark and stormy night….” So begins every story
that Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s pet beagle and struggling
novelist, attempts. The comic strip character was silent for
two years before creator Charles M. Schulz gave him a
voice. Inspired by his childhood dog Spike, Schulz, decided
to let Snoopy “think,” noting that he had always thought
there were “a lot of dogs that were smarter than their young
masters.” The illustration on display shows Snoopy
beginning another tale.
Although a favorite among children, Jean de Brunhoff’s
Babar faces adult-size challenges. In his illustration for page
nine of Histoire de Babar, the young elephant—not yet in 6
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669)
Forequarters of an Elephant, ca. 1637
Counterproof in black chalk on paper
his signature green suit—arrives at the edge of the city. The scene becomes melancholy when one
realizes that Babar is on his own, his mother having just been killed by a hunter.
Sometimes musical instruments, rather than words, give a character his or her voice. Included in
the exhibition are the typescript and manuscript for E.B. White’s The Trumpet of the Swan, a tale
of a swan named Louis who, born mute, finds his voice after discovering his talents on the
trumpet. White’s typescript and manuscript are on view. Sergey Prokofiev completed his Peter
and the Wolf—a commissioned work intended to educate young children’s musical tastes—in just
four days. Haunting French horns represent the wolf within the piano score on view.
MUSES
“… endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
— Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (1859)
Animals have long served as scientific and aesthetic inspiration, sometimes simultaneously. This
section presents works ranging from thirteenth-century Persia to twentieth-century America,
including a number of examples from the Renaissance, when a new perspective on the natural
world created a lasting interest in observing, categorizing, and understanding animals. Some
works reflect journeys to distant lands, filled with strange and wonderful creatures. Others show
an interest in those subjects closer to home, including depictions of rural life and domestic
animals.
Masters of the human figure, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
and Peter Paul Rubens also made a number of animal
sketches. Rembrandt’s Forequarters of an Elephant, of about
1637, is thought to be one of several depictions of a female
elephant named Hansken who traveled from Ceylon to
Amsterdam in 1637. The artist paid special attention to the
texture of Hansken’s skin, and accurately depicted her with
no tusks. Rubens’s Study of a Sleeping Lion is a preparatory
sketch for one of the ten lions that appear in his dramatic,
large painting Daniel in the Lions’ Den. 7
Jacob de Gheyn (1565–1629)
Studies of a Frog, Dragonfly, and Fantastic Bird
Black chalk, metalpoint, watercolor and gouache, pen and
brown ink
Thaw Collection
Photography, David A. Loggie
The lion appears again in Ibn Bakhtīshū’s Manafi -I hayavan, an important thirteenth-century
Persian manuscript. The work describes the nature of humans, animals, birds, reptiles, fish, and
insects, and also offers advice on the medicinal uses of animals. According to the text, “the tooth
of a lion tied on a child makes teething easy.”
In the sixteenth century when Dutch artist Jacob
de Gheyn sketched his Studies of a Frog,
Dragonfly, and Fantastic Bird, creatures such as
the unicorn and the griffin were still believed to
exist. Even Leonardo da Vinci included the
occasional dragon in his sketches. Also on
display is an anonymous watercolor of a lynx
and recumbent unicorn from a fifteenth-century
model book—an essential point of reference for
medieval artists who wished to depict animals—
which shows a similar pairing of reality and
myth.
John James Audubon is best known for his meticulous depictions of animals, such as this
preparatory study for Gray Rabbit: Old male, female, and young, which later appeared in his The
Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America
(1845–1848). In addition to his published
comments on rabbits’ tendency to make
“inroads upon the kitchen-garden, feasting on
the young green peas, lettuces, cabbages, &c.,
and doing a great deal of mischief,” Audubon
also added a deeply personal note on the
reverse of the drawing: “I drew this Hare
during one of the days of deepest sorrow I
have felt in my life, and my only solace was
derived from my Labour. This morning our
beloved Daughter[-in-law] Eliza died.”
John James Audubon (1785-1851)
Gray Rabbit: Old male, female, and young
Watercolor and graphite, with gouache on cream wove paper 8
A celebration of pure fancy, Debussy’s ballet for
children, La boîte à joujoux (The Toy Box), follows a
group of toys that come to life, escape from their box,
fall in love, and go off on adventures. The first edition
on view shows the charming illustrations of artist
André Hellé, who also conceived of the story.
COMPANIONS
“Animals are such agreeable friends —
they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.”
— from Scenes of Clerical Life, George Eliot
What do our relationships with animals reveal about ourselves? How can we imagine and
appreciate the lives of others, whether they be animal or human? The strong bond between
animals and humans is explored in these works, which focus on the beloved companions of
writers and artists, as well as fictional and mythological characters.
St. Francis, the patron saint of animals, is represented in an illuminated Belgian psalter dating to
1270–1280. In the page on display, St. Francis preaches to an audience of birds that reportedly
did not fly away until he was finished speaking. St. Francis
was said to have hoped for “an edict prohibiting anyone
from catching or imprisoning my sisters the larks.”
When poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s beloved cocker
spaniel, Flush, was returned after being held for ransom,
he “threw himself into my arms .. palpitating with joy .. in
that dumb inarticulate ecstasy which is so affecting .. love
without speech!” Browning related the story in a letter to
Richard H. Horne, including a sketch of “Flushie,” noting
that he is “my friend—my companion—& loves me better
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
La boîte à joujoux: ballet pour enfants
Illustrations by André Hellé
Paris: Durand, ca. 1913
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Letter signed: London, to Richard H. Horne,
October 5, 1843
Gift of the Fellows and Mr. Thomas Orchard 9
than he loves the sunshine without.”
Virginia Woolf took up the subject of Barrett Browning’s pet in Flush: a biography, in which she
imagines life from the dog’s perspective. In one scene, Woolf addresses a quandary of particular
interest to her: that we can feel so close to an animal though it remains ultimately unknowable.
She considers Flush’s lack of reaction to his likeness in Barrett Browning’s letter: “He could
smell nothing; he could hear nothing … The fact was that they could not communicate with
words, and it was a fact that led undoubtedly to much misunderstanding. Yet did it not lead also
to a peculiar intimacy?”
One hundred fifty years after Barrett Browning
described her relationship with Flush, David
Hockney made a similar observation about his
dachshunds, Boodgie and Stanley, noting,
“These two dear little creatures are my friends…I
notice the shapes they make together, their
sadness and their delight.” Special preparations
were needed for Hockney’s series of drawings of
his dogs: “I had to leave large sheets of paper all
over the house and studio to catch them sitting
or sleeping without disturbance.” The drawing
on view shows Boodgie and Stanley resting on a
cushion, curved around one another.
T.S. Eliot—“Old Possum” to his godchildren—published Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats in
1939 with inspiration from his own cat, Jellylorum. The idea for a book of poems about cats and
their nature began with an illustrated letter from Eliot to his four-year-old godson Tam Faber. In
it, he speaks of Jellylorum, whose “one idea is to be useful.” He “straightens the pictures” by
swinging on them and “looks into the dustbin to see that nothing’s wasted.” Eliot illustrated the
dust jacket for the first edition on display.
A nineteenth-century drawing by Nicolas Hüet depicts an unusual variety of companion, a giraffe
known as Zarafa with her Sudanese caretaker, Atir. The giraffe was a political gift from
Muhammed Ali, the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, to Charles X of France in an attempt to convince
the King not to interfere in the war between the Ottoman Empire and the Greeks. After a two-year
David Hockney (1937– )
Boodgie and Stanley, 1993
Crayon on paper
22 ½ x 30 ¼ in.
Thaw Collection
© David Hockney 10
journey from Sudan to Paris (which included two boat rides
and a 550 mile walk from Marseilles to Paris), Zarafa lived
with Atir in the Jardin des Plantes for eighteen years, where he
“slept within scratching reach of her head.”
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
TALK
Animalish
with Susan Orlean
Thursday, March 8, 6:30 pm
Noted New Yorker magazine writer and author Susan Orlean (Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the
Legend, The Orchid Thief) will offer her take on living with animals and their evolving place in
our lives, from the backyard to the family home. In the Company of Animals: Art, Literature, and
Music at the Morgan will be open at 5:30 pm especially for program attendees.
Tickets: $15; $10 for Members
GALLERY TALK
In the Company of Animals: Art, Literature, and Music at the Morgan
Friday, March 9, 7 pm
Clara Drummond, Assistant Curator, Literary and Historical Manuscripts, leads this informal tour
of the exhibition.
Free
FILMS
Animated Animals
Friday, April 13, 7 pm
Nicolas Hüet (1770-1828)
Study of the Giraffe Given to Charles X by the
Viceroy of Egypt, ca. 1827
Watercolor and some gouache, over traces of black
chalk, on paper.
Purchased on the Sunny Crawford von Bülow
Fund, 1978 11
My Dog Tulip
(2009, 83 minutes)
Directors: Paul and Sandra Fierlinger
This heartwarming film follows the journey of an elderly English bachelor, an excitable German
shepherd, and their very unlikely friendship. Based on J.R. Ackerley’s book of the same name,
My Dog Tulip features the award-winning animations of Paul Fierlinger and the voices of
Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave, Isabella Rossellini, and Euan Morton.
preceded by
Animal Beatbox
(2011, 3 minutes)
Director: Damon Gameau
From aardvark to zebra, this stop-motion film celebrates the wonders of the animal kingdom to an
infectious beat. Made in a spare room of the director’s mother’s house on an impressively modest
budget of $85, Animal Beatbox took top prize at the Australian short film festival Tropfest in
2011.
Free
FAMILY PROGRAM
My Book is a Beast
Saturday, April 21, 2–4 pm
Join book artist and educator Stephanie Krause in a creative book making workshop inspired by
the exhibitions In the Company of Animals: Art, Literature, and Music at the Morgan and
Rembrandt’s World: Dutch Drawings from the Clement C. Moore Collection. After a quick tour
of the exhibitions, children will bind and decorate their own animal-shaped journals using
beautiful papers and fine art materials.
Tickets: Adults: $6; $4 for Members; $2 for Children.
TICKETS
Available online at www.themorgan.org/public, or by calling (212) 685-0008 x560.
ORGANIZATION AND SPONSORSHIP
In the Company of Animals is organized by Clara Drummond, Assistant Curator, Literary and
Historical Manuscripts.
This exhibition is supported by a generous gift from Tina Santi Flaherty, in honor of her faithful
companions Jackie, a white Labrador retriever, and Scarlett, a King Charles spaniel.
Additional assistance is provided by the Janine Luke and Melvin R. Seiden Fund for Exhibitions
and Publications, and by Jeannette and Jonathan P. Rosen. 12
The Morgan Library & Museum
The Morgan Library & Museum began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan, one of
the preeminent collectors and cultural benefactors in the United States. Today, more than a
century after its founding in 1906, the Morgan serves as a museum, independent research library,
musical venue, architectural landmark, and historic site. In October 2010, the Morgan completed
the first-ever restoration of its original McKim building, Pierpont Morgan’s private library, and
the core of the institution. In tandem with the 2006 expansion project by architect Renzo Piano,
the Morgan now provides visitors unprecedented access to its world-renowned collections of
drawings, literary and historical manuscripts, musical scores, medieval and Renaissance
manuscripts, printed books, and ancient Near Eastern seals and tablets.
General Information
The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016-3405
212.685.0008
www.themorgan.org
Hours
Tuesday–Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; extended Friday hours, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday,
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Mondays, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas
Day, and New Year’s Day. The Morgan closes at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
Admission
$15 for adults; $10 for students, seniors (65 and over), and children (under 16); free to Members
and children 12 and under accompanied by an adult. Admission is free on Fridays from 7 to 9
p.m. Admission is not required to visit the Morgan Shop.
The programs of The Morgan Library & Museum are made possible
with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural
Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and from the New York
State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
Animals have provided a particularly fertile source of inspiration for artists, writers, and composers for centuries. From the carving of ancient seals with fearsome lions and mythical beasts, to the depiction of the serpent in representations of Biblical scenes by such luminaries as Albrecht Dürer, to more recent portrayals of endearing animal figures in children’s stories, such as Babar and Winnie the Pooh, animals are everywhere. The Morgan Library & Museum through May 20 is exploring the representation of animals — as symbols, muses, moral teachers, talking creatures, and beloved companions — in eighty works of art, demonstrating the varied roles animals have played in the hands of some of the most renowned artists represented in the Morgan’s collections.
“Animals abound in art, literature, and music,” said William M. Griswold, director of The Morgan Library & Museum. “Whether it is Albrecht Dürer’s iconic Adam and Eve, Edgar Allen Poe’s unforgettable The Raven, or such seminal stories from our childhood as Jean de Brunhoff’s Babar and E.B. White’s The Trumpet of the Swan, artists have employed animals throughout history to communicate important ideas and themes. In the Company of Animals takes the visitor on a delightful and informative tour of some the greatest of these works from the Morgan’s superlative collections.
SYMBOLS
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
— Emily Dickinson
Animals are not always simply animals. They can represent gods, saints, myths, sins, temperaments, emotions, and ideas. Since ancient times, artists have repeatedly turned to animals to address eternal questions of life and meaning.
The oldest work in the exhibition, a Mesopotamian cylinder seal used to make an impression when rolled over damp clay, is datable about 3500–3100 B.C. Lions prowl across the surface of the inch-high engraved stone, symbolizing the potential chaos of the natural world. Order is restored, however, by the one-eyed hero who grasps two lions upside-down. His domination over such feared creatures adds to his strength and power.
The lion is one of many animals that make an appearance in Joseph Haydn’s Creation, a musical evocation of God’s creation of the world. The first edition on view shows the “roaring” lion, as represented by bass trills; the leaps of the “flexible tiger,” by ascending runs; and the jumping of the “nimble stag,” conveyed by staccato sounds reminiscent of hunting horns. Haydn, who published this first edition himself, considered Creation the “greatest work of my life.” The fall of Man as depicted in Albrecht Dürer’s masterful engraving Adam and Eve, of 1504, is witnessed and aided by animals. A serpent twists itself around a branch to offer Eve the forbidden fruit as four creatures lie at the couple’s feet. Though the references are obscure today, art historian Erwin Panofsky noted that an educated person in the sixteenth century would have easily recognized the moral connotations and the temperaments (or humors) associated with each animal: the elk, melancholic gloom; the rabbit, sanguine sensuality; the cat, choleric cruelty; and the ox, phlegmatic sluggishness.
All works: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. All photography, unless otherwise noted: Graham S. Haber, 2011
Nicolas Hüet (1770-1828), Study of the Giraffe Given to Charles X by the Viceroy of Egypt, ca. 1827. Watercolor and some gouache, over traces of black chalk, on paper. Purchased on the Sunny Crawford von Bülow Fund, 1978
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) Adam and Eve, 1504. Engraving on paper. Purchased as a gift of Eugene V. Thaw, S. Parker Gilbert, Rodney B. Berens, Mrs. Oscar de la Renta, Elaine Rosenberg, T. Kimball Brooker, George L. K. Frelinghuysen, and on the Ryskamp Fund, the Edwin H. Herzog Fund, and the Lois and Walter C. Baker Fund
