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W. Caflin - Miniature of John L. Gardner III, about 1865

W. Caflin (active 19th century)

Miniature of John L. Gardner III (Jackie), about 1865

Watercolor on leather with gold locket-frame , 4.4 x 3.5 cm (1 3/4 x 1 3/8 in.)

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.