Object details
Accession number
P17e1
Primary Creator
Antonio Mancini
(Albano Laziale, 1852 - 1930, Rome)
Full title
John Lowell Gardner, Jr.
Creation Date
1895
Provenance
Commissioned by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the artist Antonio Mancini (1852-1930), Rome for 1,500 lire in April 1895 at the suggestion of the artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925).
Painted by the artist in the Palazzo Barbaro, Venice from April to May 1895 .
Marks
Inscribed (upper right): A Mancini – Venezia.
Dimensions
104 x 74 cm (40 15/16 x 29 1/8 in.)
Display Media
Oil on canvas
Dimension Notes
Frame: 124.3 x 94.3 cm (48 15/16 x 37 1/8 in.)
Web Commentary
Isabella and her husband, John “Jack” Gardner, met the artist Antonio Mancini in Rome in April 1895 through their mutual acquaintance Ralph Curtis. They bought the pastel, "The Little Groom" (found in the Blue Room on the first floor) and arranged for the painter to join them in Venice to paint Jack’s portrait. It was the year of the first Biennial International Exhibition in Venice. Mancini sent two pictures to it, and the portrait proposal enabled him to be at the opening of the Exhibition. The portrait was painted at the Palazzo Barbaro, where Isabella and Jack were staying with their friends, expatriates Daniel and Ariana Curtis. In Venice on April 21, 1895, Jack Gardner recorded in his diary: “[Ettore] Tito and Mancini lunched with us. Afterwards Mancini made a crayon sketch of me and decided how to paint the portrait in oils.” He worked almost daily on the portrait until the Gardners left Venice in mid-May.
Mancini’s paintings have only a minimal suggestion of spatial depth, an effect heightened by his heavily impastoed surfaces. In the 1890s, the artist usually divided his canvases into a system of squares, a “graticola” like the traditional system of transferring a design to a larger size. Mancini felt the mathematical process allowed him to capture the passions and sentiments of his subjects. The remnants of his graticola can be seen in the background of this portrait.
Permanent Gallery Location
Short Gallery
Bibliography
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1903), p. 7. (as "Portrait")
Maud Howe Eliot. Three Generations (Boston, 1924), p. 269.
Morris Carter. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925; Reprint, Boston, 1972), p. 153.
Philip Hendy. Catalogue of Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), pp. 219-22.
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 125.
Morris Carter. "Mrs. Gardner & The Treasures of Fenway Court" in Alfred M. Frankfurter (ed.). The Gardner Collection (New York, 1946), pp. 5-6, ill.
Michele Biancale. Antonio Mancini: La Vita: Roma 1852-1930 (Rome, about 1952), p. 105.
Corinna Lindon Smith. Interesting People (Norman, Oklahoma, 1962), p. 156.
“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 6, no. 26 (24 Feb. 1963), p. 2.
“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 6, no. 31 (31 Mar. 1963), p. 1. (excerpting Corinna Lindon Smith, p. 156)
Dario Cecchi. Antonio Mancini (Turin, 1966), pp. 155-56.
George L. Stout. Treasures from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1969), pp. 130-31, ill.
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), pp. 148-50, ill.
Elizabeth Anne McCauley et al. Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Venice: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, 2004), pp. 98, 109, 128, 238-39, 274, figs. 82, 176.
Ulrich W. Hiesinger. Antonio Mancini: Nineteenth-Century Italian Master. Exh. cat. (Philadelphia Museum of Art: Philadelphia, 2007), p. 71.
Manuel Carrera. "Antonio Mancini in Inghilterra. Il rapporto con John Singer Sargent." Storia dell'Arte 133, no. 33 (2012), p. 155, fig. 6.
Paolo Plebani. "Lotto in Accademia Carrara Not sulla 'fortuna' dell'artista" in Accademia Carrara. Un lotto riscoperto. Exh. cat. (Bergamo: Accademia Carrara, 2016-2017), pp. 57-59, fig. 3.
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