In the Company of Animals: Art, Literature & Music at the Morgan

giraffe

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

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

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 – Adam and Eve by Durer
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

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In the Company of Animals: Art, Literature & Music at the Morgan

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