Research Catalog

Title

The art of scandal : the life and times of Isabella Stewart Gardner / Douglass Shand-Tucci.

Author

Shand-Tucci, Douglass, 1941-

Publication

New York : HarperCollins, c1997.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xvi, 351 p., [4] p. of plates : ill. (some col.); 25 cm.

Summary

"Immortalized by Henry James in print and by John Singer Sargent on canvas, Isabella Stewart Gardner has remained an elusive original whose independent life and work shocked the Boston aristocracy she married into. Based on extensive new research, this is the first biography of Isabella Gardner in thirty years. It reveals the many strands of her life as a cultural maverick and as muse and mentor, friend and patron to writers, musicians, and artists such as James, Sargent, Lady Gregory, Bernard Berenson, Elsie De Wolfe, Martin Loeffler, Julia Ward Howe, Okakura Kakuzo, Henry Adams, T.S. Eliot, and Paul Manship. The climax of her life came after her husband's death in 1898, when she designed and built an innovative museum in the form of a Venetian palazzo and, with the legendary art historian Bernard Berenson, created America's first great private art collection. The Art of Scandal is the story of a striking woman of great force and character and of the Boston she lived in, from the Brahmins of Beacon Hill to the newly emerging ethnic communities and the little-known gay subculture. Isabella Gardner emerges as one of the most evocative figures of America's Gilded Age." --

Subject

• Gardner, Isabella Stewart, 1840-1924
• Art > Collectors and collecting > United States > Biography
• Women art collectors > United States > Biography

Genre/Form

Biographies

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 305-340) and index.

Contents

1. Madonna. Reverie -- The capacity of enjoyment -- On pilgrimage -- The awakener. 2. Muse. Jamesian perspectives -- Figure in the carpet -- Diversities -- The white rose -- A paradoxical character. 3. Seductress. In a tempter's garden -- The age of Mrs. Jack -- Stairway of jade -- The new woman -- End game.

ISBN

0060186437 (cloth)

LCCN

^^^97010676^

OCLC

• 36671994
• SCSB-10944529

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library