Dodge MacKnight (Providence, 1860 - 1950, Sandwich, Massachusetts)
Postcard 'Mrs. Jack Gardner's Venetian Palace, Boston' to Isabella Stewart Gardner from East Sandwich, Massachusetts, 31 December 1911
Chromolithograph; Ink on paper
This is a chromolithograph postcard from 1911 of the outside of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The short front of the four story building with glass windows and a red tiled roof is visible on our right, and the longer side of the building visible on our left. A beige brick wall curves around the front of the building. Written on the wall in blue ink block letters is “Buy Macknight’s Pictures.”
Long Gallery
Commentary
Macknight Room is home to a great number of watercolor paintings by its namesake: Dodge Macknight. Macknight good-naturedly badgered Isabella into purchasing his paintings and in 1912 sent her a doctored postcard of the exterior of her museum with the words “Buy Macknight’s Pictures” emblazoned across the circular wall around the Monk’s Garden. Gardner obliged, and the gallery is home to nearly a dozen works by his hand, including A Road in Winter, Cape Cod and Towering Castles, Grand Canyon.