A renewed flurry of interest in the 1990 art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum occurred the week that my husband and I took Minnesota friends to see the collection.
It was the week that “Robert V. Gentile, a Connecticut mobster long suspected by federal authorities of having information about the whereabouts of $500 million worth of masterworks stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum decades ago,” died. (See Boston Globe story.)
Visitors still flock to see the blank places where the missing pieces were once exhibited, and the museum staff is well primed on details. (Our friends asked one guard how long it took the thieves to get in and out with the goods. “Eighty-one minutes,” he answered promptly.)
So today I will share some pictures from our visit as well as a few other photos of the season.
Isabella Stewart Gardner, seen in the portrait below, was an unusual, wealthy woman who imported the courtyard and many other rooms and reconstructed them in the mansion that became a museum. She insisted in her will that nothing ever be changed after her death.
That posed a challenge for trustees. So in recent years, a separate building was constructed and connected to the mansion museum. In the new building, we saw the Titian exhibition, which features a series of paintings that Titian created between 1551 and 1562 for King Philip II of Spain. The most famous of the series is a painting Gardner actually owned.
The scenes of violence against women from Roman Mythology have forced curators to jump through a few hoops. Read about that here.
I have included a photo of the fireplace in the Dutch Room, the room from which most of the art works were stolen, and 15th century artist Paolo Uccello’s “A Young Lady of Fashion.”
The sculpture of ballet feet was outside the Mass College of Art, where we sat for a while to chat with our friends without masks that day.
Later, when I was back home, I shot the formal garden of a house in town, thinking how much it reminded me of the Gardner courtyard.
Also in town, there was a neighborly Porchfest once again, having been canceled last year because of Covid.
For the red flower picture, I very carefully tried to exclude all the clutter around it, but there is still an orange traffic hat peeking through in back. The next shot features a creative Toyota bumper.
Finally, a few photos from Rhode Island — a wall of giant stones and a Blackstone Park Eagle Scout project that created an activity space for children.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
This is such a beautiful museum.
Have you taken pictures there? I wasn’t completely satisfied with mine this time. A good reason to go back!
Great selection of photos. I have been to the museum several times. A beautiful place. The thefts were shocking.
The landscaping of the courtyard changes with the seasons and is one of the main attractions for me.
Its beautiful picture’s
Intriguing woman and home to visit. She has an odd sort of halo around her head in the portrait. It appears she used her wealth to create not only a rich setting for others to enjoy but also a shrine to her memory. I wonder if she was a kind woman or entirely self-centered. Thanks for sharing the story and photos.
What a good question! I have never heard that addressed. There seem to be several biographies, but the only related book I have read was a novel called the “Art Forger.” Not exactly historically accurate.
The museum is beautiful! I also love the stone wall and the scouts fencing. The creative license plate brought on a big grin… pretty nifty.
Thanks, Deb. I am glad you liked the stone wall. The rocks are really huge, and I wasn’t sure if I captured that. I should have put a shoe there for scale.
Photos it seems never really captures how big something is, but I thought they might be large especially the top ones. Would have been interesting to watch how they set the stones up here.
I know. They must have used heavy equipment.