IMAGES
Top: In My Gondola, Anders Zorn, 1894. Zornsamlingarna, Mora.
Middle: The artist Anders Zorn, and his wife (left) sharing a gondola ride on the Grand Canal with Mr. and Mrs. Gardner (right), ca. 1894.
Bottom: Ponte della Canonica, John Singer Sargent, 1903/04.
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The Grand Canal. Mrs. Gardner and John Singer Sargent. Henry James. James McNeill Whistler. Sexy gondoliers. Local color and cosmopolitan society. Dinner parties and Tableaux Vivants. Gliding on the waters, painting in the campos, searching out the Tintorettos and Carpaccios. Experience the enchanting atmosphere of late 19th-century Venice at the Gardner Museum this spring at the special exhibition, Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle.
The Palazzo Barbaro, a palace on the Grand Canal in Venice owned by the Curtis family from Boston, became a gathering place for a remarkable group of artists, writers, and socialites in the late 19th century. Isabella and John Gardner traveled to Venice beginning in 1884, and usually stayed at the Barbaro. John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn, James McNeill Whistler, Henry James, Robert Browning, and Claude Monet all visited the Palazzo. As the Gardner Museum commemorates its Centennial, this exhibition will present the artistic products of this fascinating time and place, and will present the Barbaro as the source of inspiration for the Gardner, which in many ways came to represent the Palazzo Barbaro — Boston's own Venetian palace: a Venetian gothic structure, with flowering gardens, full of paintings and objects, but also enlivened by working artists, poets, musicians, and thinkers.
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SATURDAY PROGRAM
Gondola Days: Introduction to the Exhibition
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Alan Chong, Curator of the Collection, Gardner
Anne McCauley, professor, Princeton University
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER LECTURE
Paradise of Cities: Venice in the 19th Century
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Lord John Julius Norwich, author & historian
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER LECTURE
Between Palazzo Barbaro and Palazzo Venier dei Leoni: Patrons, Artists, and Divas
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Angela Dalle Vacche, associate professor, Georgia Institute of Technology
Karole Vail, assistant curator, Guggenheim Museum |
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER PERFORMANCE
Tirindelli and Venetian-Inspired Music of the 19th Century
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Courtenay Budd, soprano
Jeremy Denk, piano
MORNINGS AT THE GARDNER COURSE
Encountering Venice: John Singer Sargent, Henry James & Isabella Stewart Gardner
Thursdays, May 13, 20 & 27, 2004
Judy Murray, museum educator, Gardner |
Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle is made possible by the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. Additional support is provided by JPMorgan Private Bank and media sponsor Museums Boston.
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