Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The museum was established in 1903 by Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924), a wealthy patron of the arts. It is housed in a building designed to evoke a Venetian Renaissance palazzo, but it was built entirely from the ground up in Boston, out of new materials, but incorporating numerous architectural fragments from European Gothic and Renaissance structures. The antique elements are seamlessly 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 building was not brought to America from Venice and reconstructed; that is a common misconception.

The museum has a small but outstanding collection of paintings, sculpture, furniture, textiles, ceramics, prints, drawings, manuscripts, rare books, jewelry, and Japanese screens. It is particularly rich in Italian Renaissance paintings, as well as in 19th-century works by John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler . The first Matisse to enter an American collection is housed there.

The Gardner Museum is much admired for the intimate atmosphere in which its works of art are displayed and its flower-filled courtyard. Most of the art pieces are unlabeled, and the generally dim lighting is more akin to a private house than a modern art museum. There is additionally a performance hall in which a piano and extra seating are located, and concerts are regularly held there.

Gardner began collecting seriously after she received a large inheritance from her father in 1891. Her purchase of Vermeer 's ''The Concert'' at auction in Paris in 1892 was her first major acquisition. In 1894, Bernard Berenson offered his services in helping her acquire a Botticelli . Berenson helped acquire nearly 70 works of art for her collection.

On the night of March 18 , 1990 , thieves disguised as police officers broke into the museum and stole thirteen works of art, including a painting by Vermeer ("The Concert") and three Rembrandt s (two paintings, including his only seascape ''The Storm on the Sea of Galilee'', and a small self-portrait print) as well as works by Manet , Degas , Govaert Flinck , and a French and a Chinese artifact. It is considered the biggest art theft in US history and remains unsolved. The museum still displays the paintings' empty frames in their original locations due to the strict provisions of Gardner's will, which instructed that the collection be maintained unchanged.

EXTERNAL LINKS

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum website

FBI theft page

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Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum