ISGM Exclusive Ornaments
Isabella Stewart Gardner Ornament
$16.95
This ornament of Isabella Stewart Gardner is directly inspired by her portrait painted by John Singer Sargent and displayed in the Gothic Room.
Mrs. Gardner sat for Sargent during his visit to Boston in January 1888. He was paid $3000 for the portrait, which was exhibited to great acclaim at Boston’s St. Botolph Club. The work also inspired gossip and legend: someone jokingly titled it “Woman: An Enigma,” while others believed that the sensuous display of flesh deliberately echoed the scandal recently created by Sargent’s Madame X. Mrs. Gardner herself said that she rejected eight renderings of the face until she was satisfied.
Jack Gardner seems to have asked his wife not to publicly show the portrait again while he was alive, and indeed the portrait was placed in the Gothic Room, which remained private until Mrs. Gardner’s death. In its gallery, surrounded by altarpieces, stained glass, and religious statuary, the sacramental quality noted by nineteenth-century reviewers is even more pronounced.
Ornaments of other subjects and artists featured in the Gardner Museum also available. Complete your collection of Gardner Museum-inspired ornaments with Sargent's vision of the Museum's founder!
Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice Ornament
$16.95
This ornament is based on Isabella Stewart Gardner's likeness in Anders Zorn's 1984 portrait of her at the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice, where she often stayed and entertained an international set of cultural celebrities. This depiction perfectly captures Gardner’s vibrant personality as she comes in from a balcony to encourage dinner party guests to join her for the display of fireworks over the Grand Canal.
Seeing this painting on display in Gardner’s museum in 1906, Anne O’Hagan Shinn, a suffragette and an early commentator on the collection, described the painting as a “flamelike incarnation of vigor and life—impression helped, doubtless, by the wonderful yellow gown which swathes the strong and supple figure that seems to leap from the canvas.”
Ornaments of other subjects and artists featured in the Gardner Museum also available. Complete your collection of Gardner Museum-inspired ornaments with Zorn's vision of the Museum's founder!
John Singer Sargent Ornament
$16.95
This ornament of Gardner's friend and 19th century artist John Singer Sargent comes from a print by John Templeman Coolidge of Sargent painting in the Museum's Gothic Room.
John Singer Sargent was the first artist-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. During the month of April 1903 he slept in a guest room (now called the Macknight Room) and created new works of art in his temporary studio, the Gothic Room.
John Templeman Coolidge, an artist and friend of Isabella’s, took several photographs of Sargent painting the portrait of Gretchen Osgood Warren and her daughter Rachel in the Gothic Room. These candid pictures show Sargent in a whirl of activity with brush and palette in hand—and a cigarette in his mouth.
Ornaments of other subjects and artists featured in the Gardner Museum also available. Complete your collection of Gardner Museum-inspired ornaments with John Singer Sargent!
Young Rembrandt Ornament
$16.95
This ornament of a young Rembrandt is based on his self portrait that hangs in the Dutch room. Purchased by Isabella in 1896, this painting is said by our first director, Morris Carter, to be the first that she acquired with “the intention of developing a real museum collection.”
Much like the portrait from which the ornament originates, this figure of a twenty-three year old Rembrandt is all about costume: the plumed cap, silk scarf, and the gold necklace will stand out on your Christmas tree!
Ornaments of other subjects and artists featured in the Gardner Museum also available. Complete your collection of Gardner Museum-inspired ornaments with Young Rembrandt!
El Jaleo Ornament
$16.95
During his travels in Spain in 1879, John Singer Sargent was mulling over a major work of art in which he could express his love of Gypsy music, dance, and picturesque costumes. On his return to Paris he set to work on a wide horizontal picture whose proportions simulated the shallow stage space of popular musical establishments. He named the painting El Jaleo to suggest the name of a dance, the jaleo de jerez, while counting on the broader meaning jaleo, which means ruckus or hubbub.
The painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1882 with the more explicit title El Jaleo: Danse des gitanes (Dance of the Gypsies). The painting was purchased by American businessman and diplomat T. Jefferson Coolidge in 1882, and was given to Mrs. Gardner as a gift in 1914. Then, as now, El Jaleo resides in the Spanish Cloister of the Gardner Museum, just off the famous Courtyard.
This ornament captures the central figure of Sargent's work, the semi-veiled flamenco dancer, in fluid motion with her skirt in one hand while the other flourishes with the music. Have Sargent's El Jaleo dancer gracefully twirl her way onto your Christmas tree this holiday season!
Ornaments of other subjects and artists featured in the Gardner Museum also available. Complete your collection of Gardner Museum-inspired ornaments with the El Jaleo dancer!
Putto on a Dolphin Ornament
$16.95
This ornament comes from a detail in Titian's The Rape of Europa. In the painting's bottom left corner, we can see a putto--or male cherub--riding a dolphin in the sea, attempting to keep up with Jupiter, who is disguised as a white bull, while he flees with Europa on his back.
Ornaments of other subjects and artists featured in the Gardner Museum also available. Complete your collection of Gardner Museum-inspired ornaments with the Putto on a Dolphin!
Nasturtium Window Ornament
$16.95
Inspired by the Gardner Museum's annual Nasturtium Display, this ornament features the blooms gently adorning the Venetian palazzo windows of Mrs. Gardner's Fenway Palace.
Isabella Stewart Gardner began the annual tradition of hanging colorful displays of nasturtium vines that cascaded from the Courtyard balconies at Fenway. The vines continue to come alive during the week before Easter as the Gardner Museum celebrates the arrival of spring.
Ornaments of other subjects and artists featured in the Gardner Museum also available. Complete your collection of Gardner Museum-inspired ornaments with the Nasturtium Window Ornament!
© 2022 Gift at the Gardner.
