Be forewarned, this special place has since become one of my favorite travels for its sheer amount of inspiration, gorgeous indoor garden, art and architecture — but really its enchanting and mysterious unsolved case of stolen paintings that draws in all the intrigue! I always love learning about any new place I travel, and before our trip I watched this docuseries and it details the captivating and sheer mysterious disappearance of such coveted works, worth $500 million. Yes it’s real, and the paintings are still missing to this day, of which you will see the empty frames where those famous pieces would have been on display. Are you intrigued enough to visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston yet? Well, then a walk through these photographs will certainly have this gem on the top of your list the next time in your New England …
I highly suggest you read a little about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum before visiting, only to better understand the unique building. From the outside you’d never expect that what awaits you inside, is a palace that transport you to a renaissance palazzo with its beyond-words courtyard filled with that dense scent of its latest blooms and tropical greens, rich textured walls that were already pieces of art filled with even more art and treasures of an old world filled with mystery — secret cloisters, wide sprawling staircases, and even a stained-glass chapel. With a quaint outdoor patio, now part of the restaurant, with yummy light bites and drinks, in new addition — all that’s really missing are the artists on the street corners as if in the bustling days of Florence. But the more curious thing to note is that the public is only allowed visit the museum portion, because this entire building was Isabella’s home, so the other floors that were the areas she lived in are closed off. Goodness I can only imagine the stories that are held within those beautiful walls …
But for me it’s all about her indoor garden. It is one of the most beautiful and special gardens I’ve seen. There is so much I want to say about how much I love and am inspired by this space, but feel saying too much would take away from its beauty. One isn’t allowed to come close to fragrant blooms and rich green plants, but admiring the sun’s reflection, through the stone arches, taking in that special beauty and delightful tranquility, was simply perfection.
Unlike many art museums, the lighting within the Gardner Museum ebbs and flows from soft and dark, naturally lit by the sky. That is because Isabella Stewart purposely wanted to invoke a feeling of warmth whenever one would roam the halls and admire the art. I would assume she never wanted this space to actually feel like a Museum, and it certainly doesn’t. It feels more like a very intimate walk through not-so-secrete corner of a captivating woman’s life, well the many lives she lived, the people she met, and the memories the kept along the way …
These two paintings, although subtle stopped me in my tracks, especially the one below. There is something so simple yet beautifully strong and empowering about this piece. I picked up postcard versions of these there, and have since framed these as treasures in my home.
See the empty frame on the wood piece near the chair, it’s missing Rembrandt’s Self Portrait “Portrait of the Artist as a Man”. And the empty space in the photo below, I believe is the space for Rembrandt’s “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee” from 1633 … Crazy right!
Isabella herself, in all her magical beauty!
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