Mrs. Jack

Each November I visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston located on a shady edge of the Fenway greenway. It never disappoints. Named for the woman who built it and filled it with treasures, she was born in 1840 to a good New York family.  Her position allowed her education, travel and a marriage not then available to most.   Some unlucky events in her young marriage to Jack Gardner plunged her into depression, her loving and wise husband devised a course of world travel to restore her “joie de vivre”.   The first stop was Paris in 1875 where she bought beautiful clothes and jewels. Frivolous perhaps but this first trip ignited her passion for beauty, her young agile mind was hungry and she devoured world culture.  Her subjects were architecture, engineering, painting, sculpture, music, tapestry and object d’art, her classroom: Spain, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, Athens, Munich, Vienna and Nuremberg and the list grew with time.   Together they started collecting with velocity and care.  You wouldn’t want to be up against “Mrs. Jack” bidding for a tiny Giotto or Mantagna.

A Young Lady of Fashion 1460's, attributed to Paollo Uccello, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

It is alleged that she wouldn’t back down once her vision was locked, and for art so precious, money was never the issue.  Her tenacity was as fine as the works she won.  The collection is no less thrilling today, imagine it was born from the will and eye of one woman, one lifetime.

The Boston press reported in the late 1870’s:  “Mrs. Jack Gardner is one of the seven wonders of Boston.  There is nobody like her in any city in this country. She is a millionaire Bohemienne. She is eccentric and she has the courage of eccentricity. She is the leader of the smart set, but she often leads where non dare to follow… She imitates nobody; everything she does is novel and original.”

Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice 1894, Anders Zorn, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

In  1899 she aquired the land and broke ground on a grand building that would be her home and showplace for her collection. She oversaw every detail, and devised the concept of a Venetian Palazzo “turned in on itself”. An unsuspecting brick building from the outside opens magnificently to a central courtyard garden bathed in natural light from a glass rooftop five stories up.  The joy of the garden continues up the stuccoed walls dotted with terraces and gothic arches. She took residence in 1901 and opened her doors to the public two years later.

 The courtyard at Fenway Court looking north, by David Bohl, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

“When the Museum of Fine Arts opened the doors at its new Fenway location to the public in November 1909, by which date Gardner had made most of her acquisitions, the Fenway Court Collection (the name she gave to her residence) of European Art was more distinguished than the holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston."   Hillard T. Goldfarb    

 Portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner 1888, John Singer Sargent, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

The year is 2011, walk with me into the large second floor gallery. You step into the half light of the large Gothic Room. Inevitably your eye rests on the opposite corner and there you spot her. She is gazing at you glorious in all her confidence and controversy, welcoming you to the magnificent evening ahead.   Its hard to take your eyes off the famous portrait painted by her friend John Singer Sargent so you don’t.  You linger and see that her dress most likely by Worth, is shockingly simple with its deep décolleté and bare arm. And she is wearing a pearl necklace, this pearl necklace. 

N2205 - Mrs Gardner's Necklace, Freshwater Pearl, Garnet and Sterling 

We have created a pearl necklace inspired by the one worn by Mrs Gardner.  The garnet and pearl pendant is an enhancer, so you can wear the genuine strand of pearls alone.  It’s thrilling to share a replica of an accessory owned by a great lady who left us with all of her life’s pleasures. 

“C’est mon plaisir!”