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Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Review
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Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 
- Address: 280 The Fenway, The Fenway, Boston, MA, 02118 | Map It
- Phone: 617/566-1401; 617/566-1088 cafe
- www.gardnermuseum.org
- Category: Museums/Galleries
- Location: The Fenway and Kenmore Square
Fodor's Review:
A spirited young society woman, Isabella Stewart had come in 1860 from New York -- where ladies were more commonly seen and heard than in Boston -- to marry John Lowell Gardner, one of Boston's leading citizens. Through her flamboyance and energetic acquisition of art, "Mrs. Jack" promptly set about becoming the most un-Bostonian of the Proper Bostonians. When it came time finally to settle down with the old master paintings and Medici treasures she and her husband had acquired in Europe -- with her money (she was heir to the Stewart mining fortune) -- she decided to build the Venetian palazzo of her dreams in an isolated corner of Boston's newest neighborhood. She built her palace to center on a spacious inner courtyard. On New Year's Day 1903, she threw open the entrance to Fenway Court (to use the museum's original name) -- then as now, a monument to one woman's individuality and taste. Today, it's probably America's most idiosyncratic treasure house.
In a city where expensive simplicity was the norm, Gardner's palazzo was amazing: a trove of paintings -- including such masterpieces as Titian's Rape of Europa, Giorgione's Christ Bearing the Cross, Piero della Francesca's Hercules, and John Singer Sargent's El Jaleo -- overflows rooms bought outright from great European houses. Spanish leather panels, Renaissance hooded fireplaces, and Gothic tapestries accent salons; eight balconies adorn the majestic Venetian courtyard. There's a Raphael Room, a Spanish Cloister, a Gothic Room, a Chinese Loggia, and a magnificent Tapestry Room for concerts, where Gardner entertained Henry James and Edith Wharton. Throughout the two decades of her residence, Mrs. Jack continued to build her collection under the tutelage of the young Bernard Berenson, who became one of the most respected art connoisseurs and critics of the 20th century.
At one time Gardner lived on the fourth floor of Fenway Court. When she died, the terms of her will stipulated that the building remain exactly as she left it -- paintings, furniture, everything, down to the smallest object in a hall cabinet. The courtyard, fully protected from New England winters by a glass roof, is decorated with fresh poinsettias at Christmastime, bright orange South African nasturtiums in spring, and chrysanthemums in autumn -- just as when Mrs. Jack lived here.
Today, with more than 2,500 works in the collection and rates dramatically lower because of increasing recoveries of stolen art, the Gardner carries insurance. Mrs. Jack never believed in making a contribution to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, putting her faith in her mansion's entry portal, which carries Renaissance-period figures of both St. George and St. Florian, the patron saints protecting believers from theft and fire.
An intimate restaurant overlooks the garden, and in spring and summer tables and chairs spill outside. To fully conjure up the spirit of days past, try to attend one of the concerts still held from September to May (with a break for the holidays) in the Tapestry Room. A first-floor gallery has revolving exhibits of historic and contemporary art. If you've visited the MFA in the past two days, there's a $2 discount to the admission fee. Also note that a charming quirk of the museum's admission policy waives entrance fees to anyone named Isabella, forever.
- Cost: $12
- Open: Museum Tues.-Sun. 11-5, open some holidays; cafe Tues.-Fri. 11:30-4, weekends 11-4. Weekend concerts at 1:30
- Metro: Museum
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