The Personal Librarian

The aim of much of Belle’s labor and the foundation of her relationship with J.P. Morgan is the creation of the Pierpont Morgan collection. J.P.’s approach to his collection—that it is a way of outshining his economic and social rivals—makes the collection a symbol of his wealth and influence. His ability to deploy Belle to bid outrageous sums of money advertise that he has so much wealth that the cost of these objects is of no concern to him. Collecting the objects is a form of conspicuous consumption, in other words. J.P.’s feelings about the collection are not just about the material wealth they represent, however. Because of his wealth, J.P. is able to hoard the aesthetic experience of handling a rare text and taking in its beauty in the privacy of his own home. His collection makes him feel special, in other words.

Belle’s notion of what the library represents is also complicated. Belle sees the collection as a source of experiences that remind her of her father, who regularly took her to museums to teach her how to view art. Belle, like Bernard, also sees accessing art as a democratizing activity. Belle’s main goal throughout much of the novel is to transform this private collection into a public institution that will provide access to academics and ordinary people, a view that contrasts sharply with J.P.’s.

After J.P. dies, Belle participates in paring down the collection because it constitutes too large a portion of the Morgan wealth. She can persuade Jack Morgan to turn the collection into a library by advancing the idea that it is a monument to the Morgans, J.P. in particular. The collection becomes a symbol of the Morgan legacy in the public realm. For Belle, however, the library becomes a public symbol of her success in a male-dominated world and a private symbol of her connection to her father and Black excellence. Her choice to allow a reporter to take her picture between J.P.’s desk and Portrait of a Moor, a Tintoretto that she added to the library collection, underscores these several meanings of the library.

The Progress of Love, a four-painting series by 18th-century French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard, appears in Chapter 38. The four paintings—The Pursuit, The Meeting, The Lover Crowned, and Letters—represent for Belle her idealized understanding of the evolution of her relationship with Bernard Berenson from the heady moment when she met him to the more comfortable relationship they have established over the time they have known each other. Belle initially sees Letters, the final painting, as a symbol for “the final stage of love, the calm pleasure of a stable union,” and she suspects that she finds the painting “appealing because it so deftly captures the sort of relationship” she has with Bernard as they correspond by letter and enjoy each other when they can (293).

Belle’s understanding of what the paintings represent shifts when the Duveen brothers, agents interested in representing the Morgans in the sale of the paintings and some other items, inform Belle that they know details about what the Morgans hope to sell because Bernard has been trading information about Belle’s plan to them in exchange for money. The paintings go from being artistic, abstract representations of love to being concrete objects with a monetary value that can be manipulated by people like Bernard. 

The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance is a text is written by Bernard Berenson. It appears first as a gift that Richard Greener gives to Belle on her tenth birthday. In this episode, it represents the bonding between father and daughter over the shared experience of art. When Belle meets Bernard years later, her memory of the beautiful art she saw in the book and Bernard’s commentary predispose her to see Bernard through an idealized lens that veers between hero-worship and sexual attraction. Her emotional vulnerability to Bernard comes from her identification of Bernard with the book; the episode in which the two share tears and awe as they view one of the art pieces in Italy allows Belle to feel comfortable in engaging in a sexual relationship with Bernard. Several years later, the popularity of Italian art described in the book has waned as Belle and others welcome more contemporary art. The book becomes an important symbol of Bernard’s inability to adapt.

Belle gets pregnant during her trip to Italy with Bernard, and the abortion Bernard secures for her becomes an important symbol for the tension between Belle’s professional and personal life. With her abortion, Belle forecloses motherhood in favor of protecting her identity as a single white woman with a career in a male-dominated field. Her ability to exercise control over her reproduction is a potent symbol of Belle as a modern woman who rejects traditional gender norms. The pain involved in securing the abortion shows that achieving this identity comes at some cost to Belle.

Belle’s choice to go through with the abortion at Bernard’s insistence also shows the limits of her relationship with him. He fails to accompany her or assume any responsibility for having gotten her pregnant due. Bernard’s callousness as Belle manages the trauma of the abortion is a wake-up call that shows Belle that her idealized notion of Bernard does not align with reality.