AKU-2011-007

Everett Harrington Doane (attributed), American, 1871–1931

The Corner: J.P. Morgan at 23 Wall Street, October 1907

1909

Oil on canvas

185 × 140 cm

Acquisition

Purchased, 2011

Curator’s Note

In October 1907, a banking panic threatened to collapse the American financial system. J.P. Morgan, then seventy years old, convened the country's leading bankers in the library of his Manhattan townhouse and refused to let them leave until they had agreed to a collective rescue. He committed $25 million of his own money. The United States government had no central bank and no mechanism to intervene. This painting, completed two years after the event, shows Morgan at his desk at 23 Wall Street — not in the library, not in the moment of decision, but afterward, alone. The expression is unreadable.

Exhibition

gilded-age-digital-age