From Mansion to Museum: The Frick Collection Celebrates
Seventy-Five Years
On view from June 22 through September 5, 2010

Angelo Magnanti (1879–1969)
Reception Hall of The Frick Collection, 1935
Elevation drawing; graphite, colored pencils, watercolor,
and gold leaf on Strathmore paper
The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives

Among the first issues addressed in transforming the Frick home into a museum was visitor access. It was decided that the new museum would be entered via 70th Street. The mansion’s former porte-cochère was demolished to make way for a public entryway, then called the Reception Hall and today known as the Entrance Hall. This elegant rendering by Angelo Magnanti depicts the hall’s coffered ceiling adorned with finely carved rosettes. The ceiling’s intricate design is balanced by the more austere pilasters capped with Ionic capitals and the arched portals in the room’s stone walls. The smaller rectangle in the drawing represents the ceiling above the outer and inner doors of the entrance to the museum.

Reception Hall (Entrance Hall) of The Frick Collection (photo: The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archive)

Entrance Hall of The Frick Collection, 2010 (photo: Michael Bodycomb, The Frick Collection)