Object details
Object number
ARC.008036
Creator(s)
Title
Ludwig Passini's "Isabella Stewart Gardner"
Date
1892
Medium
Albumen print on card
Language
English
Dimensions
16.4 x 10.8 cm (6 7/16 x 4 1/4 in.)
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Signed (lower left corner, on painting in image): Ludwig Passini / Venezia 1892
Provenance
Probably commissioned by Isabella Stewart Gardner around 1892.
Commentary
In 1892, Isabella commissioned pastel portraits of herself and her husband Jack from the Viennese artist Ludwig Passini while they were in Venice. Isabella's biographer Morris Carter wrote, "Although she liked the painter, these portraits never gave her pleasure." The location of the portraits is unknown and may have been destroyed by Isabella. She kept this photograph of her portrait in a drawer in a commode in the Vatichino, the small gallery adjacent to the Macknight Room. As in the 1888 John Singer Sargent portrait, she wears her signature pearl and ruby necklace.
Bibliography
Alan Chong. "Henry James, Mrs. Gardner and Art" in Rosella Mamoli Zorzi (ed.). Henry James Letters to Isabella (London, 2009), pp. 35-36.
Elizabeth Anne McCauley et al. Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Venice: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, 2004), pp. 99-100, fig. 70.
Morris Carter. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925; Reprint, Boston, 1972), p. 130.
Gallery
Vatichino
Rights and reproductions
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