a biography of the day-isabella stewart gardner (art collector, philanthropist)

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Isabella Stewart Gardner

Isabella Stewart Gardner (April 14, 1840 – July 17, 1924) – founder of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston – was an American art collector, philanthropist, and one of the foremost female patrons of the arts.

Isabella Stewart Gardner had a zest for life, an energetic intellectual curiosity and a love of travel. She was a friend of noted artists and writers of the day, including John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Anders Zorn, Henry James, Okakura Kakuzo and Francis
Marion Crawford. The Boston society pages called her by many names, including "Belle," "Donna Isabella," "Isabella of Boston," and "Mrs. Jack." Gardner created much fodder for the gossip tabloids of the day with her reputation for stylish tastes and unconventional behavior. Her surprising appearance at a 1912 concert (at what was then a very formal Boston Symphony Orchestra) wearing a white headband emblazoned with "Oh, you Red Sox" was reported at the time to have "almost caused a panic", and remains still in Boston one of the most talked about of her eccentricities.
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The earliest works in the Gardners' collection were accumulated from their trips to Europe especially, but also from such places as Egypt, Turkey, and the Far East. The Gardners began to collect in earnest in the late 1890s, rapidly building a world-class collection of paintings and statues primarily, and also tapestries, photographs, silver, ceramics and manuscripts, and architectural elements such as doors, stained glass, and mantelpieces. Nearly 70 works of art in her collection were acquired with the help of dealer Bernard Berenson. Among the collectors with whom she competed was Edward Perry Warren, who supplied a number of works to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Gardner collection includes work by some of Europe's most important artists, such as Botticelli's Madonna and Child with an Angel, Titian's Europa, and Raphael's The Colonna Altarpiece, and Diego Velázquez.
Isabella Stewart Gardner’s favorite foreign destination was Venice, Italy. The Gardners regularly stayed at the Palazzo Barbaro, a major artistic center for a circle of American and English expatriates in Venice, and visited Venice’s artistic treasures with amateur artist and former Bostonian, Ralph Curtis. While in Venice, Gardner bought art and antiques, attended the opera and dined with expatriate artists and writers.

After John L. Gardner’s sudden death in 1898, Isabella Gardner realized their shared dream of building a museum for their treasures. She purchased land for the museum in the marshy Fenway area of Boston, and hired architect Willard T. Sears to build a museum modeled on the Renaissance palaces of Venice. Gardner was deeply involved in every aspect of the design, though, leading Sears to quip that he was merely the structural engineer making Gardner's
design possible. The building completely surrounds a glass-covered garden courtyard, the first of its kind in America. Gardner intended the second and third floors to be galleries. A large music room originally spanned the first and second floors on one side of the building, but Gardner later split the room to make space to display a large John Singer Sargent painting called El Jaleo on the first floor and tapestries on the second floor.
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Her will created an endowment of $1 million and outlined stipulations for the support of the museum, including that the permanent collection not be significantly altered. In keeping with her philanthropic nature, her will also left sizable bequests to the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Industrial School for Crippled and Deformed Children, Animal Rescue League, and Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. A devout Anglo-Catholic, she requested in her will that the Cowley Fathers celebrate an annual Memorial Requiem Mass for the Repose of her Soul in the museum chapel. This duty is now performed each year on her birthday by priests of The Church of the Advent

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner



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The Gardners journeyed to Scandinavia, Russia, Italy, and France, and Isabella’s “ebullient personality and zest for life” were restored, according to the Gardner Museum. The couple continued to travel over the next several years, including to unconventional places like Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, Athens, Vienna, Munich, and Nuremberg. Isabella’s travel journals reveal her keen interest in other cultures, their art and architecture. Back home in Boston, Isabella (who was often referred to as “Mrs. Jack”) was attracting attention as a woman who was “eccentric,” “original,” the “leader of the smart set,” and “one of the seven wonders of Boston” — not at all what was expected of a proper Victorian Boston lady.

Through her travels abroad and acquaintances in Boston, Isabella was drawn into intellectual and artistic elite circles with the likes of Julia Ward Howe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Henry James, James McNeill Whistler, and F. Marion Crawford whose invitation for her to attend readings by Harvard’s Charles Eliot Norton led her to begin collecting rare books and manuscripts. Isabella held dinner parties, salons, and lectures in her Beacon Street home including talks by Edward Morse on Japanese art and culture, which inspired the Gardners to visit that country in 1883. They also traveled to China, India, and Egypt and befriended local artists. Their return visit to Venice in 1884 introduced Isabella to more artists who urged her to collect and advised her on what was important. The Gardners’ visit to London in 1886 led them to John Singer Sargent, who would play a significant role in Isabella’s life as her portraitist and protégé. By 1894, her ten-year relationship with Bernard Berenson had ripened into one of advisor and collector. The Gardners’ home at 152 Beacon Street was now packed full of glorious works of art from all over the world. According to the Gardner Museum, Isabella’s purchase of Rembrandt’s 1629 Self-Portrait is what finally inspired the Gardners to create a proper museum.

They chose The Fenway for its remote location, natural light, and for the new, beautifully landscaped park system created by Frederick Law Olmsted. They would create a Venetian palace, like those they had visited in Italy, with grand public rooms, an interior courtyard, and a private apartment for their use. Tragically, on December 10, 1898, Jack Gardner died suddenly of a stroke. Isabella would have to realize their dream on her own.

She threw herself into the project, directing every detail, climbing ladders to oversee installations or the painting of just the right color. She worked with some of her talented friends on room displays and garden plantings. On the evening of January 1, 1903, guests were invited to a private opening of Fenway Court, complete with a concert by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Isabella Stewart Gardner’s museum opened to the public a month later in February; now, hundreds could enjoy more than 2,500 objects from ancient Egypt to Matisse including paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, historical furniture, ceramics, glassware, books, and manuscripts. As her friend Henry Adams wrote to her, “As long as such a work can be done, I will not despair of our age, though I do not think any one else could have done it … You are a creator and stand alone.” To this day, as Isabella stipulated in her will, her public rooms remain exactly as she designed them.

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http://bwht.org/isabella-stewart-gardner/

isabella stewart gardner museum: http://www.gardnermuseum.org/