Object details
Accession number
U18w77
Creators
Full title
Miniature of John L. Gardner III (Jackie)
Creation Date
about 1865
Provenance
Entered Isabella Stewart Gardner's collection after 15 March 1865.
Marks
Engraved (verso): John Lowell Gardner, 3rd, Born June 18th 1863, Died March 15th 1865
Dimensions
4.4 x 3.5 cm (1 3/4 x 1 3/8 in.)
Display Media
Watercolor on leather with gold locket-frame
Web Commentary
Isabella Stewart Gardner commemorated her experience as a mother through the portraits enshrined in this case. Her child, John L. Gardner III (“Jackie”), died of pneumonia in 1865, just three months shy of his second birthday. Her grief was acute: Gardner had adored her blue-eyed little boy. When her husband’s nephews were orphaned a decade later, she and Jack Gardner raised the three boys as their own. Sadly, their nephew Joseph Peabody Gardner, Jr., also died as a youth. In a moving tribute, she placed his photograph alongside similar portraits of herself and Jack, and beneath a portrait of Jackie.
Permanent Gallery Location
Little Salon
Bibliography
Christina Nielsen et. al. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: A Guide (New Haven, 2017), p. 5, ill.
Rights and reproductions
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