Dig deeper into our collections with our most recent stories.
Deceptive Intimacy: Isabella Stewart Gardner’s 1883 Japan Travel Albums
During her 1883 trip through Japan, Isabella purchased photographs from commercial studios and pasted them into albums. Learn what these images tell us about 19th century global tourism from Curator David Odo.
Leafing Through Isabella’s Travel Album: Spain and Portugal, Volume II, 1888
Learn about the prominent photographers and booksellers that produced the prints purchased by Isabella throughout her travels in Europe and read how the replica album was made; now on view in The Fellow Wanderer: Isabella’s travel albums exhibition at the Fenway Gallery.
Saint Christopher: World's Best Travel Companion
Saint Christopher is celebrated around the world as a symbol of safe travel. Learn how Isabella’s own travels led her to acquire three depictions of this saint for her collection.
Betye Saar & The Gardner Museum: A Long-Standing Relationship
Learn about how contemporary artist Betye Saar has long felt a connection to the Museum and its founder, Isabella Stewart Gardner.
The Orchid Habit: Under the Spell of the Cymbidium
As well as collecting art, Isabella Stewart Gardner had a passion for orchids. Come to know the Cymbidium, the world’s oldest cultivated orchid.
Making Reproductions of Two Hanging Scroll Paintings at the Gardner Museum
The Gardner Museum recently created reproductions of two hanging scroll paintings that were showing signs of degradation. Learn more about these two pieces ahead of your next visit to the Third Floor Passage.
Mirrors with a Memory: The Gardner Family Daguerreotypes
Photograph conservator, Tatiana Cole, takes us into the precious world of the Gardner daguerreotypes and what a closer look can tell us about their history.
Francesco Pesellino’s Painting and Men’s Fashion in the Italian Renaissance
Francesco Pesellino’s ‘Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and Death’ is an art & fashion historians dream, providing a snapshot of men’s & women’s garments during the Italian Renaissance.
Open House: How Isabella’s Home Exhibition Funded Trailblazing Cotting School
Three years before opening Fenway Court, Isabella hosted an art exhibition in her Beacon Street home to help fund one of Boston’s most groundbreaking educational institutions.