Object details
Accession number
P3w40
Primary Creator
Jan Voerman
(Kampen, Netherlands, 1857 - 1941, Hatten, Netherlands)
Full title
Nasturtiums
Creation Date
about 1894
Provenance
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the art dealers Frans Buffa & Zonen, Amsterdam for 700 francs on 16 September 1894, through the American painter and collector Ralph W. Curtis (1854-1922).
Marks
Inscribed (lower right): J. Voerman
Dimensions
34.3 x 55.3 cm (13 1/2 x 21 3/4 in.)
Display Media
Opaque watercolor on paper
Web Commentary
Dutch artist Jan Voerman painted this still life of three pots of yellow and orange nasturtiums in the late 19th century. Isabella Stewart Gardner’s friend Ralph W. Curtis brought the work to her attention, writing "it is A1 but will suffer no little ones to hang near it, unless they be real nasturtiums." Isabella was an avid gardener and grew nasturtium vines at her greenhouses in Brookline, Massachusetts. Annually in April, she placed them on the balconies in the courtyard to celebrate her birthday—a tradition the Museum continues today.
Permanent Gallery Location
Blue Room
Bibliography
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1905), p. 2. (as by J. Vanmeer)
Philip Hendy. Catalogue of Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), p. 412.
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 37.
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), p. 288, ill.
Rights and reproductions
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