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Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Mass.
By
Published: Jan 01, 2006
Category:
Travel
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Boston, Massachusetts
It occurred to me very early in life that you meet better women at museums and concerts than you do at bars and hockey games. I may not have come to this conclusion completely on my own — as a 16 year-old at a boarding school just outside of Boston, I was too fresh-faced to be served at a bar and too chicken to brave a crowd at a hockey game — but over the years it has proved to be one of my better ideas. Which is to say: for my idea to succeed, two people are required. Clearly, there were teenage girls who had the same idea I did.
The place where I conducted my first experiments in the use of cultural institutions as pick-up joints was the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a mansion on Boston’s Fenway.
For one thing, it was a romantic setting, and then some. Mrs. Gardner was filthy rich, an arts patron and a zealot about sharing her love of the arts with lesser mortals. Starting in the 1890s, she and her husband bought art like they were going to stop making it soon, gobbling up great paintings much as hedge fund managers do today.
And like today’s moguls, Mrs. Gardner wanted to house her treasures in a showplace. But not for her the strict architecture of Boston. She loved Venice, and Venice she would have. She had plans drawn up for a 15th-century Venetian palace: four floors, built around a large courtyard with a glass ceiling. There would be plants and soft, natural lighting. And, most of all, there would be art — 2,500 objects and paintings, including works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, Manet, Chinese artifacts and great furniture. Oh, and ten portraits of Mrs. Gardner.
Mr. Gardner did his wife the favor of dying before the house was finished in 1901. Mrs. Gardner took a year to install the art — and then to move herself into an apartment on the fourth floor. On January 1, 1903, she opened the museum for friends. The entertainment: members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A month later, the public streamed in.
Mrs. Gardner died in 1924. Her will stipulated that nothing in the museum could be moved. And nothing was. In the years I visited the Gardner, great art was inadequately lit, Rembrandts required flashlights, Vermeers were displayed on desks. No matter: The flowers and plants were glorious. And, on Sunday afternoons, there was music.
Mozart is an aphrodisiac. That’s as much as I can say — I am discretion incarnate where others are involved. Well, I can add this: in winter, the Gardner was my refuge. If you’re in Boston in cold weather, it can be yours as well.
The Gardner’s collection is diminished these days, thanks to two thieves who, in 1990, disguised themselves as cops. They tricked the guards, gained entry, and, in less than an hour, strolled out into the night with a stunning Vermeer (okay, is there another kind?), three Rembrandts, a Manet, a Degas and seven more works of art. It was the biggest art theft in America history. And the most successful — no one has been convicted and nothing has been returned.
But the Gardner has also grown of late, and in a way that should delight music-lovers. Its web site is now home to free online recordings of the weekend performances at the museum, and you can stream the music or load it on your iPod. Granted, the social aspect is lacking. And you don’t get the thrill of sitting in a palace as you listen to period music. But the quality of the musicianship is high, and you’re likely to hear young musicians who will be the stars of classical performance in years to come.
Going to Boston? Don’t miss the Gardner. (If your name is Isabella, you get in free.) And don’t sneer at the kids who might be cruising one another. They could be the next generation of me — or you.
For the Gardner Museum web site, click here.
To hear music from the Gardner Museum, click here.
To buy "Mrs. Jack," a biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner, from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy "Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum" from Amazon.com, click here.
