The Lunch Report: Lunch with JP Morgan

Today I had lunch with JP Morgan. Not "at" JP Morgan, mind you, but "with" JP Morgan, in the real House of Morgan* (Let’s call him "JP" and pretend we're on nickname bases).

What I am trying to say is that I lunched at The Morgan Library and Museum, my favorite NYC institution.

Lunching in the Dining Room at The Morgan is a rare and coveted benefit of being a Fellow of the Morgan (and, fortunately, gals can be "fellows" as well in the House of Morgan).

Today's lunch consisted of:

Two sips of sherry
Broiled salmon nestled on a bed of quinoa and spinach
Apple raisin cake with a fig glaze
A splash of Bordeaux

Cost: $0, unless you figure in my annual contribution to maintain my Fellowette status, then it was almost 1000 times my daily limit, which I can ill afford).

Typically, I miss these quarterly lunches because either work interferes or I am overcome with ambivalence as to why I should attend. I am not likely to gather any clients there and even less likely to gather some eligible men (Maybe my standards are too high, but I am not yet willing to consider the 65+ age set when it comes to dating). So why is this gal a Fellow?

As the youngest of my class of Fellows (Yes, Fellows have "classes" although I am still not certain what happens when we graduate. Do we get to take home one of our favorite works from the museum?), my participation is unusual, if not odd. I do not have an extensive collection. In fact, I don't really have any collection at all, unless you count the William Kentridge* drypoint hanging proudly above my mantelpiece, the intricate crocodile drawings from an emerging (aka affordable) Brooklyn-based artist and a random assortment of hand me downs and prints that are a cut above those I had in college but do not justify an independent visit to my apartment.

My absence of a collection was a source of grave embarrassment at lunch. I was seated next to the head of the library who, after introducing himself, asked me what I collected. I quickly stuffed some salmon into my mouth to gain time before responding and then washed it down with a swig of Bordeaux (yum, not bad, did that also come from JP’s collection?). I suppose as a Fellow, I am meant to have been hording art works over the last 10 years which some day can be harvested into treasures worthy of The Morgan, instead of pouring my paychecks straight into the coffers of golf resorts (who, by the way, really need the money now, just as badly as museums).

Because my lunch companion had become the Head Morganite after I had been elevated to “Fellow” status, he probably had not read my sponsor's application for my candidacy, which stated quite clearly that I collected men, not art (although query which costs more in the end—it’s just as difficult to buy low, sell high and generate capital gains).

As I formulated my response (pronounced so meekly that Mr. Head of Morgan probably convinced himself I’d said I collected “Caravaggio” rather than “Kentridge”), I suddenly felt very small in the big House of Morgan, especially after having walked through the three story atriumesque Gilbert Court (thanks, Renzo*, well done) to reach the Fellow’s Dining Room.

At this point in life I have come to terms with the fact that I am unlikely to establish a bank of international repute (I’m having enough difficulty at home with the Bank of Frost and its anemic reserves), stave off a liquidity crisis, as JP did in 1907,* or pull together a collection that rivals the diversity of JP's (gotta love a collection that houses Babar the Elephant, William Blake, lyrics of Bob Dylan and some Gutenberg Bibles)..

But still, it all made me think, what is my legacy, to The Morgan, or to anyone else for that matter? Will anyone know I was here when I am gone? There will probably be no children to whom I can pass on my little Kentridge.. (I could give it to The Morgan, if they’ll have it . . .) You will likely never see "Gift from the Penelope Frost Collection” under a work hanging on one of JP's walls.

Maybe my contribution to The Morgan is not as easily measured as others. Yet, hopefully, JP (if not other Morganites) can appreciate my less tangible form of support through the friends I drag to The Morgan in the hopes they may also make a small contribution, triggering some form of never-ending self-reproduction of contributions.

I haven’t decided whether this intangible contribution is enough and I don't even know what I would want my legacy to be if I had the power to shape it. Maybe when I do know, I will be ready to graduate as a Fellow.. Until then, I urge you all to stop by The Morgan, especially following November 4th when a new exhibition opens—“A Woman's Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy”—which promises to surpass all the rest.

Please also visit: http://www.themorgan.org

Notes
*Not to be confused with Ron Chernow’s book of the same name which brilliantly chronicles the Morgan family’s financial dynasty through the splintering created by the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act into J.P. Morgan & Co. (later Morgan Guaranty Trust), Morgan Stanley and Morgan Grenfell and up until Morgan Stanley’s merger with Dean Witter. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance (© 1990 Ron Chernow).

*William Kentridge (1962-) is a prominent South African artist best known for his animated films created from drawings and erasures. One of these drawings now sits in the Penelope Frost Collection in NYC.

*The Morgan’s most recent renovation and expansion, designed by world renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano, was completed in 2006.

*JP purportedly resolved the Panic of 1907 by locking his fellow bankers in his library at The Morgan until they reached a resolution. Apparently Secretary Geithner and others have attempted to implement this same crisis resolution technique, but have been unable to agree upon the appropriate library in which to lock in all the bankers.