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4 unusual facts about Isabella Stewart Gardner


Isabella Stewart Gardner

In the Titian Room, Titian's magnificent painting of Europa (1561–1562) hangs above a piece of pale green silk, which had been cut from one of Isabella Stewart Gardner's gowns designed by Charles Frederick Worth.

Nearly 70 works of art in her collection were acquired with the help of dealer Bernard Berenson.

The Gardners regularly stayed at the Palazzo Barbaro, a major artistic center for a circle of American and English expatriates in Venice, and visited Venice’s artistic treasures with amateur artist and former Bostonian, Ralph Curtis.

Okakura Kakuzō

Outside of Japan, Okakura had an impact on a number of important figures, directly or indirectly, who include philosopher Martin Heidegger, poet Ezra Pound, and especially poet Rabindranath Tagore and heiress Isabella Stewart Gardner, who were close personal friends of his.


Cyclorama Building

In 1889, a new cyclorama painting Custer's Last Fight, was installed, but by 1890, the fashion for cycloramas had ended, and the new owner of the building, John Gardner (father-in-law of Isabella Stewart Gardner), converted it to a venue for popular entertainment, including a carousel, roller skating, boxing tournaments (including an 1894 fight of John L. Sullivan), horseback riding, bicycling, and so on.

Louis Kronberg

Kronberg was vastly supported by Boston's great art matron Isabella Stewart Gardner, and hence his work is represented in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, as well as in the museums of Boston and Indianapolis.

The Stevens-Coolidge Place

Helen Stevens Coolidge's family first acquired the farm in 1729, and from 1914 to 1962 it was her summer home with husband John Gardner Coolidge, diplomat, descendant of Thomas Jefferson, and nephew of Isabella Stewart Gardner.


see also

Henry Davis Sleeper

Isabella Stewart Gardner commissined work from him; Henry Francis du Pont engaged his assistance with the big new wing of the family's massive Delaware house, Winterthur, now a famed museum of American decorative arts; he designed for Hollywood stars Joan Crawford and Fredric March.