"This book takes you through the collection gallery by gallery, illuminating the art and installations in each room"--From preface.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is world renowned for a superb collection of over 10,000 objects that range from ancient Chinese bronzes to Renaissance tapestries, from paintings by Raphael and Rubens to those of Whistler and Matisse. This guidebook charts new pathways through the beloved institution and tells the story its founder, a trail-blazing American who was among the most prominent patrons of her day. Isabella Stewart Gardner built a Venetian-inspired palazzo in Boston to house her exquisite and thought-provoking arrangement of art objects from diverse cultures and periods of history to share with the world. she hosted luminaries in the worlds of music, dance, and literature and supported such famed artists as Henry James and John Singer Sargent. Exploring the museum room by room, the authors of this book look at masterpieces by Botticelli, Rembrandt, Titian, and others, as well as hidden treasures, including often overlooked decorative arts, collected letters, and photographs. Rather than positioning the museum simply as a historical gem, they present it as a site for forging connections between past and present and reinforcing the founder's legacy of sustaining contemporary art, music, and education with initiatives supported by space in the New Wing designed by Renzo Piano and constructed in 2012. Featuring spectacular photography, the book captures this unique museum, helping us consider anew what the museum meant in Gardner's time and what it means in ours.

The intimate Monk's Garden at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston embodies the design principles that inform the work of noted landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh. In Designing a Garden, Van Valkenburgh presents the design of the Monk's Garden at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, an intimate, walled garden that Laurie Olin has described as "a masterpiece, and not a minor one." The book documents the evolution of the garden's design, which is based on the concept of meandering paths through a dreamlike woodland to create a contemplative space. Sketches and models show how the idea was worked out, and lush photographs reveal the completed garden through the seasons. Van Valkenburgh's text explores the origins of his love of landscape and plants in his family farm in Upstate New York and how this has influenced his intuitions as a designer. He shares the full background story of the Monk's Garden, focusing on the experimental nature of design work as well as the challenges and satisfactions of the small scale and the historic and cultural context. Designing a Garden provides a unique first-person account of the design process from the most prominent landscape architects in the country.

Isabella Stewart Gardner was a force to be reckoned with. She routinely went toe-to-toe with major museums and titans of industry to purchase masterpieces, she created a museum unlike any other, and she was famous for flouting the social conventions that governed women of her time. This book, however, shows another side of Isabella that readers may not expect: her love of dogs. Featuring black-and-white images from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum archives, this volume allows readers to meet Isabella's favorite dogs (Kitty Wink and Patty Boy), see the litters of puppies she bred, and discover how her dogs were a source of comfort to her toward the end of her life. Usually stern in photographs, Isabella--like many people--could not help grinning when posing for photos with puppies. Whether it was collecting Renaissance masterpieces or raising Fox Terriers, this book shows that Gardner approached all aspects of life with enthusiasm and dedication.

An in-depth study of one of Boston’s treasured cultural landmarks, the pioneering patron behind the collection, and the Pritzker Prize–winning architect who modernized the Gardner Museum’s vision. When Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her exquisitely curated collection to the public in 1903, she could hardly have imagined the more than 250,000 visitors that now annually explore the art and furnishings housed in her historic re-creation of a Venetian palace. Tasked with the first addition to the museum since its founding, Renzo Piano Building Workshop has brought Gardner’s vision into the new millennium. In addition to sumptuous images of the courtyards, gardens, and galleries of the original stone palazzo and rarely seen journal pages and photographs, this beautifully designed volume features architectural renderings and new photographs of the 70,000-square-foot wing. Essays address Gardner’s life, including her friendships with Henry James, James McNeill Whistler, and John Singer Sargent; the museum’s interaction with Renzo Piano Building Workshop; and the new building within the firm’s distinguished museum work as a whole.

Don't miss B. A. Shapiro's new novel, Metropolis, available now! “[A] highly entertaining literary thriller about fine art and foolish choices.” —Parade “[A] nimble mystery.” —The New York Times Book Review “Gripping.” —O, The Oprah Magazine Almost twenty-five years after the infamous art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—still the largest unsolved art theft in history—one of the stolen Degas paintings is delivered to the Boston studio of a young artist. Claire Roth has entered into a Faustian bargain with a powerful gallery owner by agreeing to forge the Degas in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But as she begins her work, she starts to suspect that this long-missing masterpiece—the very one that had been hanging at the Gardner for one hundred years—may itself be a forgery. The Art Forger is a thrilling novel about seeing—and not seeing—the secrets that lie beneath the canvas.

Extensively researched and richly detailed, this biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner is the first to vividly portray the extraordinary life and times of one of the 19th-century's most fascinating and eccentric women--muse and mentor to the likes of Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and George Santayana. 40 photos. Full-color insert.

Best known for its collection of masterpiece paintings, the Gardner Museum is also one of the first museums to include a large quantity of Italian furniture. This meticulously designed catalogue includes numerous photographs that focus on individual objects and reveal characteristic forms and styles. Observations made by the museum conversation department about the techniques and materials of the pieces, which differ significantly from furniture of other countries, are also published.

In 1916, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) met Thomas Eugene McKeller (1890-1962) a young African American elevator attendant at Boston's Hotel Vendome. McKeller became the principal model for Sargent's murals in the new wing of the Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, among the painter's most ambitious works. Sargent's nude studies and sketches from this project attest to a close collaboration between the two men that unfolded over nearly ten years. Featuring drawings given by Sargent to Isabella Stewart Gardner and published in full for the first time, a portrait of McKeller, and archival materials reconstructing his life and relationship with Sargent, this book opens new avenues into artist-model relationships and transforms our understanding of Sargent's iconic American paintings. Essays offer the first biography of Thomas McKeller and a window into African America life in early 20th century Roxbury. They address the artist's sexuality, his models, and consider questions of race and gender.