Inventing Isabella

John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925), Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1888. Oil on canvas, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

“Mrs. Jack Gardner is one of the seven wonders of Boston. There is nobody like her in any city in this country. She is a millionaire Bohemienne. She is the leader of the smart set, but she often leads where none dare follow… She imitates nobody; everything she does is novel and original.” – A Boston Reporter

Mrs. Gardner sat for Sargent during his visit to Boston in January 1888. He was paid $3000 for the portrait, which was exhibited to great acclaim at Boston’s St. Botolph Club. The work also inspired gossip and legend: someone jokingly titled it “Woman: An Enigma,” while others believed that the sensuous display of flesh deliberately echoed the scandal recently created by Sargent’s Madame X. Mrs. Gardner herself said that she rejected eight renderings of the face until she was satisfied. Jack Gardner seems to have asked his wife not to publicly show the portrait again while he was alive, and indeed the portrait was placed in the Gothic Room, which remained private until Mrs. Gardner’s death. In its gallery, surrounded by altarpieces, stained glass, and religious statuary, the sacramental quality noted by nineteenth-century reviewers is even more pronounced.

Anders Zorn (Swedish, 1860–1920), Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice, 1894. Oil on canvas, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

This lively portrait of Isabella Gardner was painted by one of her many artist friends, Anders Zorn. It shows her at the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice, where the Zorns and the Gardners spent time together in the fall of 1894. According to Jack Gardner’s diary, on the evening of October 20 his wife went out on the balcony to see a display of fireworks. Coming back into the room filled with guests, she threw open the glass doors and said, “Come out—all of you. This is too beautiful to miss.” The picture is all about light—the artificial light inside the room and the fireworks outside. Isabella Gardner herself, wearing her trademark long string of pearls, seems to glow. Gardner conveniently installed a portrait of her husband Jack nearby, making it easy to draw comparisons (style, personality, etc.) between the two.

Maison Chapelle Cordonnier (established Paris, 1815), Pair of Purple Slippers, late 19th century–early 20th century. Satin, silk, and leather, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

Made in Paris in the late nineteenth century, this pair of fashionable satin slippers with graduated straps dotted by bows, were a gift from Isabella Stewart Gardner to her goddaughter, Katharine Foote, daughter of famous Boston composer, Arthur Foote. Foote donated them to the Perkins School for the Blind for use in the drama department’s costume collection, where they could be worn by children in school plays. Imbued with happy memories of school performances, by 1954 the shoes were no longer used, and they were donated to the museum as a relic of Isabella’s taste in fashion.