The music room presents a juxtaposition of sculptures displayed on a Steinway piano, an extraordinary series of small 19th and 20th-century works by artists such as Medardo Rosso and Alberto Giacometti, and paintings on the walls, including three of the collection’s 16th-century masterpieces: San Gerolamo in un paesaggio (St Jerome in a Landscape, c. 1528) by Dosso Dossi, Ritratto di gentildonna con libro in mano (Portrait of a Lady Holding a Book, c. 1545–50) by Paris Bordone and Ritratto di gentiluomo con libro e guanti (Portrait of a Gentleman with Book and Gloves, c. 1540–41) by Pontormo.

It is hands that attract the visitor’s attention here: contrasting in the Pontormo portrait, one tensed to hold the book firmly and the other relaxed, almost as limp as the glove it holds; elegant in the case of Bordone’s lady; and agitated in the case of the saint (one of the many depictions of St Jerome in the collection, which is no coincidence, since Jerome is the patron saint of bibliophiles, scholars, and translators). The magnificent contrast of hands continues in Man Ray’s enigmatic photograph of Harry Melvill (c. 1925), hanging out of view between the stairs and a utility room, where the focal point is once again a pair of hands, slender and feminine, dancing in front of the sheet of paper that covers the lower part of the face. The portraits by Pontormo and Man Ray have common characteristics in that the composition highlights a tall male figure with a book or surrogate in a central position. The sight of these slender figures is reminiscent of the photographs of the collector as a young man, generally busy with bundles of papers and his beloved books.