Object details
Accession number
ARC.007885
Primary Creator
American, Brookline
Full title
Sargent Fireplace at Green Hill, Brookline, Massachusetts
Creation Date
May 1919
Object Case
Sargent / Whistler Case
Language
English
Provenance
Entered Isabella Stewart Gardner’s collection at an unknown date.
Marks
Inscribed in pencil (verso, top right corner): R11 W
Inscribed in ink in Isabella Stewart Gardner's hand (verso): Photograph of the Sargent fireplace / at Green Hill / Brookline, May 1919
Display Media
Gelatin silver print
Web Commentary
In 1886, Henry James introduced Isabella Stewart Gardner to renowned painter John Singer Sargent, beginning a friendship that spanned almost 40 years. Isabella was delighted when the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston commissioned Sargent to decorate their new building in 1916 and she closely followed the project’s progress.
Sargent designed not only the rotunda’s paintings and sculpted reliefs but also its ceiling moldings. He experimented with many different designs and tested them in a scale model of the rotunda before settling on his final choices for enlargement and installation. Isabella collected the cast offs and used them to construct a fireplace hood at Green Hill, her home in Brookline. Sargent commented that if “architecture is frozen music" he would like to be around when the “fireplace melted.”
Isabella sold Green Hill on 1 April 1919, leaving the fireplace hood behind, and making the fourth floor of the museum her sole residence.
Permanent Gallery Location
Long Gallery
Rights and reproductions
The use of images, text, and all other media found on this website is limited. Please review Rights and Reproductions for details.