Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The home which houses today's museum was built in 1903 by Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924), an American art collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. It is housed in a building designed to emulate a 15th-century Venetian palace, drawing particular inspiration from the Venetian Palazzo Barbaro.

Gardner began collecting seriously after she received a large inheritance from her father in 1891. Her purchase of Johannes Vermeer's The Concert (c. 1664) at auction in Paris in 1892 was her first major acquisition. In 1894, Bernard Berenson offered his services in helping her acquire a Botticelli. With his help, Gardner became the first American to own a painting by the Renaissance master. Berenson helped acquire nearly 70 works of art for her collection.

The Rape of Europa (1562) by Titian is one of the most famous works in the museum

After her husband John L. Gardner's death in 1898, Isabella Gardner realized their shared dream of building a suitable space to exhibit their treasures. She purchased land in the marshy Fenway area of Boston, and hired architect Willard T. Sears to build a home, Fenway Court, modeled on the Renaissance palaces of Venice. Gardner was deeply involved in every aspect of the design, leading Sears to quip that he was merely the structural engineer making Gardner's design possible. After the construction of the building was complete, Gardner spent a year installing her collection in a way that evokes intimate responses to the art, mixing paintings, furniture, textiles and objects from different cultures and periods among well-known European paintings and sculpture. The gallery installations were very different than they appear today; the Room of Early Italian Paintings, for example, served as her Chinese Room until about 1914.

The museum opened on January 1, 1903 with a grand celebration featuring a performance by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a menu that included champagne and doughnuts. In 1909 the Museum of Fine Arts moved to its new home close by.

During Gardner's lifetime, she welcomed artists, performers, and scholars to Fenway Court to draw inspiration from the rich collection and dazzling Venetian setting, including John Singer Sargent, Charles Martin Loeffler, and Ruth St. Denis, among others. Gardner also occasionally hosted artists' exhibitions within Fenway Court, including one of Anna Coleman Ladd. Today, the museum's contemporary artist-in-residence program, courtyard garden displays, concerts, and innovative education programs continue Isabella Gardner's legacy.

When Gardner died in 1924, her will created an endowment of $1 million and outlined stipulations for the support of the museum, including the charge that her collection be permanently exhibited "for the education and enjoyment of the public forever" according to her aesthetic vision and intent.

Gardner appointed her secretary and the former librarian of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Morris Carter (1877–1965) as the museum's first director. Carter catalogued the entire collection and wrote Gardner's definitive biography, Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court. George L. Stout (1897–1978) was the second director. The father of modern conservation, Stout ensured the long-term preservation of the collection and historic structure. Rollin Van Nostrand Hadley (1927–1992) became the third director in 1970. Hadley increased visiting hours, instituted the Membership Program and added a cafe. Hadley also wrote several catalogs for the museum, produced Fenway Court, an annual scholarly publication, and wrote the 1987 book The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner (Northeastern University Press). Anne Hawley was director from 1989 until 2015.[4]

"Fenway Court", the museum's original building

Built to evoke a 15th-century Venetian palace, the museum itself provides an atmospheric setting for Gardner's inventive creation. Gardner hired Willard T. Sears to design the building near the marshy Back Bay Fens to house her growing art collection.[8] Inside the museum, three floors of galleries surround a garden courtyard blooming with life in all seasons.

It is a common misconception that the building was brought to America from Venice and reconstructed.[9] It was built from the ground up in Boston out of new materials, incorporating numerous architectural fragments from European Gothic and Renaissance structures.

Antique elements are worked into the design of the turn-of-the-century building. Special tiles were custom designed for the floors, modern concrete was used for some of the structural elements, and antique capitals sit atop modern columns. The interior garden courtyard is covered by a glass roof, with steel support structure original to the building.

The Gardner Museum is much admired for the intimate atmosphere in which its works of art are displayed and for its flower-filled courtyard. Most of the art pieces are unlabeled, and the generally low lighting is more akin to a private house than a modern art museum.

In 2013, the museum was designated a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission.

Sandro Botticelli, The Story of Lucretia (1496–1504)

Gardner collected and carefully displayed a collection of more than 7500 paintings, sculptures, furniture, textiles, silver, ceramics, 1500 rare books, and 7000 archival objects from ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, Renaissance Italy, Asia, the Islamic world, and 19th-century France and America. Among the artists represented in the galleries are Titian, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Manet, Degas, Whistler and Sargent. The first Matisse to enter an American collection is housed in the Yellow Room.

Well-known artworks in the museum's collection include Titian's The Rape of Europa, John Singer Sargent's El Jaleo and Portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Fra Angelico's Death and Assumption of the Virgin, Rembrandt's Self-Portrait, Aged 23, Cellini's Bindo Altoviti, Piero della Francesca's Hercules, and Botticelli's The Story of Lucretia.

The archives hold more than 7,000 letters from 1,000 correspondents, including Henry Adams, T.S. Eliot, Sarah Bernhardt, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, in addition to travel albums, dealer receipts, and guest books.

The galleries also contain Gardner's little-known but extensive book collection that includes early-print editions and manuscripts of Dante, works by miniaturist Jean Bourdichon, incunables, and illuminated manuscripts.

Glass skylights illuminate the central atrium of the New Wing

In 2002, after a two-year master planning process, the museum's board of trustees determined that a new wing was necessary to preserve the historic building and to provide improved spaces for programs that continue Isabella Gardner's legacy. In 2004, Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano and the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (Genoa, Italy) were selected to design the new wing. The design for the new wing is conceived as a respectful complement to the historic Museum building in scale, form, and materials.

The new expansion includes spaces for visitor services, concerts, special exhibitions, and education and landscape programs, furthering Isabella Gardner's legacy in art, music, and horticulture while reducing 21st-century strain on the collection and galleries. The completion date was 2012,[10] and the project cost $118 million.[11]

The museum regularly produces scholarly exhibitions, lectures, family programs, and symposia that provide insights into the historic collection. Through the Artist-in-Residence program, artists in many disciplines are invited to live at and draw inspiration from the museum. The museum often hosts exhibitions of contemporary art, performances, and programs by those selected.

The Gardner's concert series welcomes musicians and emerging artists to perform classical masterpieces, new music, and jazz on Sunday afternoons and select Thursday evenings. The musical program is also available through concert videos, audio recordings, and a free classical music podcast.

Reflecting Isabella Gardner's passion for horticulture and garden design, the Gardner's interior courtyard combines ever-changing horticultural displays with sculpture and architectural elements. The interplay between the courtyard and the museum galleries offers visitors a fresh view from almost every room, inviting connections between art and landscape. Programs like the Landscape Visions lecture series and special Ask the Gardner hours further engage visitors to embrace the art of landscape.

In keeping with Isabella Gardner's enthusiasm for the Boston Red Sox baseball team, visitors wearing Red Sox paraphernalia receive discounted admission. Visitors named Isabella, or visiting on their birthday, enter free.[12]

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  Hercules by Piero della Francesca (after 1465)
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  Study for the Colonna Pietà (c. 1538) by Michelangelo
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  Lady in Black (1598–99) by Tintoretto
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  Self-portrait, aged 23 (1629) by Rembrandt
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  El Jaleo (1882) by John Singer Sargent
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  Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice (1894) by Anders Zorn
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  Annunciation (ca. 1485) by Piermatteo Lauro de' Manfredi da Amelia

• National Register of Historic Places listings in southern Boston, Massachusetts

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

• Official website
• The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has a virtual 3D tour called "Thirteen Works: Explore the Gardner's Stolen Art". The tour allows you to virtually tour the museum while learning about the thirteen pieces that were stolen in the early 1990s. The website also allows users to browse the museums digitized collections by genre. The genres include American art, Ancient art, Asian art, Decorative art, European art, Islamic art, and furniture. The museum also provides detailed descriptions of conservation efforts that had occurred each year at the museum.
• FBI theft page and Mar 2013 update
• City of Boston, Boston Landmarks Commission Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Study Report