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Fenway Court

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Gardner Museum viewed from the Fenway
Gardner Museum viewed from the Fenway
(new wing is not visible at rear)
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is located in Boston
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Location within Boston
Former name Fenway Court
Established 1903 (1903)
Location 25 Evans Way
Boston, MA 02115
Coordinates 42°20′19″N 71°5′56″W / 42.33861°N 71.09889°W / 42.33861; -71.09889
Type Art museum
Accreditation American Alliance of Museums
Founder Isabella Stewart Gardner
Director Peggy Fogelman
Public transit access Museum of Fine Arts Handicapped/disabled access
Website

gardnermuseum.org

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Gardner Museum in 2012
Gardner Museum in 2012, original building at right
Built 1896–1903
Architect Willard T. Sears
NRHP Reference # 83000603
Added to NRHP January 27, 1983

gardnermuseum.org

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (ISGM) or Fenway Court, as the museum was known during Isabella Stewart Gardner's lifetime, is a museum in the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, located within walking distance of the Museum of Fine Arts (although the Museum of Fine Arts's Huntington Avenue location was constructed after Fenway Court) and near the Back Bay Fens. The museum houses an art collection of world importance, including significant examples of European, Asian, and American art, from paintings and sculpture to tapestries and decorative arts. In 1990, thirteen of the museum's works were stolen; the high-profile crime remains unsolved and the location of the artworks is still unknown.

Today, the museum hosts exhibitions of historic and contemporary art, as well as concerts, lectures, family and community programs, and changing courtyard displays. In accordance with the will of Isabella Stewart Gardner, admittance is discounted to those wearing Boston Red Sox memorabilia, and is free to anyone named Isabella.

The museum was incorporated in 1900 and opened in 1903 by Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924), an American art collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. It is housed in a building designed to emulate a 15th-century Venetian palace, drawing particular inspiration from the Venetian Palazzo Barbaro.

Gardner began collecting seriously after she received a large inheritance from her father in 1891. Her purchase of Vermeer's The Concert at auction in Paris in 1892 was her first major acquisition. In 1894, Bernard Berenson offered his services in helping her acquire a Botticelli. With his help, Gardner became the first American to own a painting by the Renaissance master. Berenson helped acquire nearly 70 works of art for her collection.


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