Review by Booklist Review
The Stewarts were a prosperous and prominent New York family when Isabella was born in 1840, though one beset by sorrows when her siblings died young. Belle and her parents found solace traveling throughout Europe; she also attended school in Paris, acquiring multiple languages and setting the template for her cosmopolitan life. When she married John Lowell Gardner Jr., she joined a Boston Brahmin clan in a conservative enclave hostile to her energetic independence. The young couple began their extensive world travels after the devastating death of their young son and failed pregnancies, elaborate journeys during which Belle adventurously acquired myriad objects and artworks. Throughout this vibrant, reconfiguring biography, Dykstra (Clover Adams, 2012) illuminates Belle's perpetual vigor, avid curiosity, profound receptivity to beauty and diverse cultures, unconventional ambitions, generosity, and triumphs over loss and adversity as a master gardener, philanthropist, trailblazing art collector, and museum founder. Along the way, Dykstra tracks Belle's key relationships with John Singer Sargent, Henry James, Bernard Berenson, Okakura Kakuzō, and many more, and recounts just how radical her aesthetics and mission were as, after her husband's death, she ingeniously designed, exactingly built, and innovatively administered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Marshalling vivid facts, fluent insights, and narrative radiance, Dykstra fully captures Gardner's dynamism, intrepidity, creativity, and singular achievements.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Biographer Dykstra (Clover Adams) paints a captivating portrait of philanthropist and museum founder Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840--1924). Raised near New York City's Washington Square, Belle (as she was known) developed an "early appreciation for art." At age 20, she married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner, who worked at her family's shipping and real estate firm. Her charmed life collapsed five years later, when her toddler son died in 1865. Afflicted with "neurasthenia," she was taken by Jack on the first of many trips abroad to recover, and the couple returned to Boston in 1867 laden with art and treasures. She became a fashion icon (known for her "signature" pearl necklace) and a patroness of the English label House of Worth. By 1880, she aimed to establish an art salon in Boston inspired by the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice. After Jack died in 1898, she devoted herself to building Fenway Court--today known as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum--to display her impressive collection. Dykstra's high-spirited narrative devotes ample time to Gardner's friendships with famous figures, including Henry James (whose Portrait of a Lady she inspired) and John Singer Sargent (her museum's inaugural artist in residence). It's an elegant depiction of a larger-than-life trailblazer. Illus. Agent: Zoë Pagnamenta, Zoë Pagnamenta Agency. (Mar.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Isabella Stewart Gardner was born into a wealthy New York-based family in 1840. Her family traveled extensively in Europe, and she met the sister of her future husband when she attended a prestigious Parisian school. She married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner in 1860. Narrator Maggi-Meg Reed describes how flamboyant Isabella struggled to gain a foothold in Boston's elite society. Her married life was marked by tragedy, including the death of her only child. She and Jack traveled extensively as a balm for her melancholy, and she soon developed a talent for identifying and acquiring fine art. Gardner's privileged circumstances allowed her to purchase paintings and other artworks, including rare books, furniture, porcelain, and architectural facades. To display her remarkable collection, she eventually built Fenway Court, a space that later became known as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Dykstra (Clover Adams) offers a well-researched account of Gardner's life, drawing upon correspondence between Gardner and many well-known artists and creators, including John Singer Sargent and William and Henry James. VERDICT Reed's elegant delivery and diction enhance Dykstra's delightful portrait of a visionary Gilded Age art collector. Recommended for art history buffs and those who enjoyed Douglass Shand-Tucci's The Art of Scandal.--Joanna M. Burkhardt
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The life of a preeminent art collector. Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924), designer and founder of a Boston museum filled with her collections, was born into money and married into more. When she wed Jack Gardner in 1859, she joined one of the wealthiest, most powerful families in America. As Dykstra, author of Clover Adams, portrays her in a thoroughly researched, sympathetic biography, Gardner resisted the role of socialite to become a discerning patron of the arts. She was "a woman who saw what was expected of her as a Boston matron and decided to be something else. She made sense of her long life through far-reaching travel, avid collecting, and an all-consuming pursuit of beauty." Dykstra reports those extensive trips in detail, making much of the biography read like a travelogue of places and famous people, including Henry James, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, and Henry Adams. Along the way, Gardener shopped--for clothing, silks, pearls, and art. She could afford whatever appealed to her: Vermeer, Botticelli, Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Titian, among many more. Bernard Berenson, at the start of his career as a prominent connoisseur and art dealer, counted Gardner as his most important client. Her comings and goings, "musical occasions" and parties, were noted in the press. "Mrs. Jack Gardner is one of the seven wonders of Boston," a reporter exulted in 1875. "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." Dykstra deals with Gardner's reticence--her diaries do not reveal her innermost feelings--with intelligent conjectures. "It is said that no more self-contained woman ever lived," the Boston Journal noted in a profile. Ultimately, the author captures the sweep and energy of her life, and the book includes photographs and artwork. A richly detailed biographical portrait. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
