Object details
Object number
3.3.r.128.x
Creator(s)
Title
Print of Spoiled Plate: Anders Zorn's Etching "Isabella Gardner"
Date
1894
Medium
Etching on wove paper
State
II/II
Dimensions
45.1 x 33.3 cm (17 3/4 x 13 1/8 in.)
Additional Dimensions
Frame: 51.7 cm x 40.5 cm
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Signed and dated in plate (lower left): Zorn Boston, 18 Febr. 1894
On plate (upper right corner): Gardner-Stewart coat of arms and name: Isabella
Signed in graphite (lower right): Zorn
Provenance
Commissioned by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the artist Anders Zorn (1860-1920), Boston in 1894. Set of 33 etchings purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner's husband John Lowell Gardner, Jr. (1837-1898).
Commentary
This etching was Zorn’s first commission from Isabella Gardner. With her black dress, distinctive feather plume and coat of arms, Gardner is shown here as a status-conscious member of the American upper class. The date on the inscription, 18 February 1894, marked Zorn’s 34th birthday. He celebrated this occasion with Gardner at a party thrown in his honor at her home in Boston’s Back Bay.
Source: Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America, special exhibition on view in the museum's Hostetter Gallery, February 28 – May, 2013.
Bibliography
Karl Asplund. Anders Zorn: His Life and Work (London and Chicago: "The Studio," Ltd. and A. Kroch & Company, 1921), p. 73 no. 85.
Morris Carter. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925; Reprint, Boston, 1972), p. 138.
Michelle Facos. Swedish Impressionism’s Boston Champion: Anders Zorn and Isabella Stewart Gardner. Exploring Treasures in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum VI. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1993), pp. 24-27.
Alan Chong et al. (eds.) Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 2003), p. 215.
Elizabeth Anne McCauley et al. Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2004), pp. 104-109, fig. 76.
Sven Lidbeck, Anders Zorn Etchings: Catalogue Raisonné (Helsinki, 2007), p. 119, ZG84.
Oliver Tostmann et al. Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2013), pp. 142-45, no. 21a.
Gallery
Vatichino
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