Isabella Stewart Gardner papers
name: label: Creator
content: Gardner, Isabella Stewart, 1840-1924
label: Names
content: Duveen Brothers
label: Names
content: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
label: Names
content: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
label: Names
content: Berenson, Bernard, 1865-1959
topic: label: Occupation
content: Art patrons -- Massachusetts -- Boston
label: Topic
content: Art -- Collectors and collecting -- Massachusetts -- Boston
label: Topic
content: Art, Renaissance -- Massachusetts -- Boston
label: Topic
content: Art, Italian -- Italy -- Venice
label: Topic
content: Painting, Renaissance
label: Topic
content: Sculpture, Renaissance
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Microfilm lent by Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for duplicating, 1972-1975.
creator: label: Creator
content: Gardner, Isabella Stewart, 1840-1924
setName: label: See more items in
content: Isabella Stewart Gardner papers
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Isabella Stewart Gardner was an art patron, collector, and museum founder in Boston, Mass. Immediately after graduation from Harvard, Bernard Berenson was hired by Gardner to travel throughout Italy collecting Italian Renaissance art for her recreated Venetian palazzo in Boston. She established her palazzo as a museum of fine European art with stipulations that after her death none of the exhibited works was to be moved or rearranged, but left as she had designed during her lifetime.
function: label: Function
content: Art museums -- Massachusetts -- Boston
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 40 Microfilm reels
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1760-1956
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.gardisab
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Microfilm reels
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: 35mm microfilm reels 380-413, 631-632, 696-698, and 846 available at Archives of American Art offices and through interlibrary loan.
originalsloc: label: Existence and Location of Originals
content: Originals in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, Mass.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Letters, business records, diary, and photographs.
label: Scope and Contents
content: REEL 380-413: Primarily correspondence, mostly Gardner's own, but including family correspondence and Gardner Museum correspondence.
label: Scope and Contents
content: REELS 631-632: Personal papers of Gardner and some records of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum including dealers' files containing invoices, notes, cancelled checks, and letters; a record book, "Prices Paid for Paintings," 1917; a record book, "Prices Paid for Works of Art"; 118 installation photographs of the museum as arranged by Gardner, 1924; a diary kept in Egypt, 1874, with sketches; a diary kept in Shanghai and India, 1883-1884; "Directions for my funeral," 1912; and "Suggestions for Running a Museum," 1913.
label: Scope and Contents
content: REELS 696-698: Letters from Bernard Berenson to Gardner, 1887-1924. Letters contain references to literary topics, Berenson's impressions of Europe, various paintings and artists, advice to Gardner on the purchase of paintings and information on their sale.
label: Scope and Contents
content: REEL 846: Checklist of Gardner's letters to Bernard and Mary Berenson, 1894-1924; typescripts of personal and official correspondence (originals found on AAA microfilm reels 696-698), 1887-1924.