Object details
Object number
ARC.006490
Creator(s)
Title
George Bancroft
Date
1883
Medium
Platinum print
Dimensions
11.7 x 19.3 cm (4 5/8 x 7 5/8 in.)
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Autographed and inscribed in ink (bottom center): George Bancroft cal(?); 84.7. & 7 days
Dated in ink (lower right): Nov 1883
Provenance
Entered Isabella Stewart Gardner's collection at an unknown date.
Commentary
Marian “Clover” Adams photographed her neighbor George Bancroft behind his desk. Piled high with papers and books with a quill in hand, Clover captured the historian in his intellectual pursuits. She was pleased with the picture, as was her friend John Hays. He even advised the editor of Century—an illustrated monthly magazine—to use it on their cover.
Isabella collected photographs throughout her life. She displayed this picture in the Okakura Case in the Blue Room.
Bibliography
Natalie Dykstra, Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life (New York, 2012), pp. 161-62, ill.
Elizabeth Reluga, "The Overlooked Female Photographer, Clover Adams," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 17 May 2022, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/overlooked-female-photographer-clover-adams
Gallery
Blue Room
Case
Okakura Case
Rights and reproductions
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