Isabella Stewart Gardner and Her Museum: A Curated Life

XXXVII. Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) was a member of Boston's Brahmin society during the Gilded Age. A philanthropist and passionate art collector, she created her very own museum she called Fenway Court which opened to the public in 1903. Her museum, now called the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, resembles a Venetian-style palazzo and rises above Boston's Fens, and showcases objects and art from the classical world to the 20th century, all displayed today just as she laid them out herself.

Gardner was considered eccentric in her public behavior and the press eagerly reported on her latest moves, but what we do know of her inner life and love of art -- and her deep desire that the public could see it, too -- is the focus of this episode.

Diana Seave Greenwald, interim curator of the collection at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum joins The Gilded Gentleman for a talk about "Isabella Stewart Gardner: A Life", the new biography that she co-wrote. We take a look at just who this deeply fascinating woman of the Gilded Age really was, and how she built her museum that was left, as she wished, for us all to see today.