John Singer Sargent (Florence, 1856 - 1925, London)
Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1888
Oil on canvas , 190 x 80 cm (74 13/16 x 31 1/2 in.)
This vertical oil painting is an almost life-sized, full length portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner. Isabella stands facing us and has light skin. Her shoulders are squared, her arms are extended downward, and her hands are clasped together with her fingers interlaced in front of her hips. The outline of her shoulders, arms, and hands form an oval. Isabella looks directly at us, and her mouth is slightly open. Her auburn hair is drawn back behind her ears, her eyes are blue, and her cheeks are tinted pink. Her long, black gown is close-fitting, accentuating her slim, hourglass figure. The gown has a plunging V neckline and short sleeves. Around Isabella’s neck is a white pearl choker necklace from which a large ruby dangles, with a small pearl underneath. Around her waist hangs a double strand of pearls, with a ruby dangling from the middle of each strand and another pearl hanging from the ruby on the lower strand. A ruby also tops each of her light-colored shoes, which peek out from the bottom of her gown. Isabella stands on a reddish-brown floor and in front of a red and gold background that resembles a textile with an elaborate circular and swirling design. The golden design encircling her head suggests a halo with a crown-like flourish. The painting has a simple, gilded wood frame.
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Object details
Accession number
P30w1
Creators
- John Singer Sargent (Florence, 1856 - 1925, London) - primary
- Isabella Stewart Gardner (New York, 1840 - 1924, Boston) - subject
Full title
Isabella Stewart Gardner
Creation Date
1888
Provenance
Isabella Stewart Gardner purchased from John Singer Sargent, 6 February 1888 for $3,000.
Marks
Signed (upper left): John S. Sargent
Dated (upper right): 1888
Dimensions
190 x 80 cm (74 13/16 x 31 1/2 in.)
Display Media
Oil on canvas
Dimension Notes
Frame: 225.43 x 116.21 cm (88 3/4 x 45 3/4 in.)
Web Commentary
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.
Permanent Gallery Location
Gothic Room
Bibliography
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), pp. 269-70.Morris Carter. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925; Reprint, Boston, 1972), pp. 104-05.Morris Carter. "Mrs. Gardner & The Treasures of Fenway Court" in Alfred M. Frankfurter (ed.). The Gardner Collection (New York, 1946), pp. 6, 55, ill. 4.Charles Merrill Mount. John Singer Sargent, a Biography (New York, 1955), pp. 132-34.Gladys Brooks. Boston and Return (New York, 1962), pp. 183-84.Corinna Lindon Smith. Interesting People (Norman, Oklahoma, 1962), pp. 156-57.“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 6, no. 19 (6 Jan. 1963), pp. 1-2. (excerpting Morris Carter, pp. 103-05)“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 6, no. 31 (31 Mar. 1963), p. 2. (excerpting Corinna Lindon Smith, pp. 156-57)“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 7, no. 14 (1 Dec. 1963), p. 2. (excerpting Gladys Brooks, pp. 183-84)“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 7, no. 39 (24 May 1964), p. 2. (excerpting Charles Merrill Mount, pp. 132-34)Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), pp. 222-24.Doreen Bolger Burke. "Astarte: Sargent's Study for The Pagan Gods Mural in the Boston Public Library." Fenway Court (1976), p.19, no. 10.Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt. "Mrs. Gardner's Renaissance." Marks of Identity: New Perspectives on Sixteenth-Century Italian Sculpture. Fenway Court, vol. 23 (1990-1991), pp. 10-30, no. 6.Erica Hirshler. Denis Miller Bunker: American Impressionist. Exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Chicago: Terra Museum of American Art and Denver: Denver Art Museum, 1995), p. 52, fig. 23.David Park Curry. "Never Complain, Never Explain: Elsie de Wolfe and the Art of Social Change." Cultural Leadership in America, Art Matronage and Patronage. Fenway Court, vol. 27 (Boston, 1997), pp. 52-78, no. 4.Anne Higonnet. "Private Museums, Public Leadership: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Art of Cultural Authority." Cultural Leadership in America, Art Matronage and Patronage. Fenway Court, vol. 27 (Boston, 1997), pp. 79-92, no. 2.Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray. John Singer Sargent: Complete Paintings (New Haven, 1998), I, The Early Portraits, pp. 209-11, no. 206. Alan Chong et al. (eds.) Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, (Boston, 2003), pp. 204-5.Cynthia Saltzman. Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures (New York: Penguin Books, 2008), pp. 49, 61.Christine M. E. Guth. "Multisensorial Asia" in Alan Chong and Noriko Murai (eds.). Inventing Asia: American Perspectives Around 1900. Fenway Court, vol. 33 (Boston, 2014), pp. 92-93, fig. 7.Richard Ormond et al. Sargent: Portrait of Artists and Friends. Exh. cat. (London: National Portrait Gallery and New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015), pp. 16, 180-81, cat. 66.Barbara Dayer Gallati. John Singer Sargent: Painting Friends (London, 2015), pp. 10 fig. 5. Linda J. Docherty. "Translating Dante: Isabella Stewart Gardner's Museum as Paradiso." Religion and the Arts (2018), pp.199-200, fig. 1.Per Hedström, ed. John Singer Sargent. Exh. cat. (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 2018), pp. 138-139, ill. p. 138.Christina Nielsen (ed.). Sargent on Location: Gardner's First Artist-in-Residence. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2018), p. 15, ill. p. 19 (fig. 7).Alison Wright. Frame Work: Honour and Ornament in Italian Renaissance Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), pp. 151-153, 183, fig. 100.Rights and reproductions
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Gothic Room
Commentary
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.