Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - Boston, MA - Art Museums on Waymarking.com

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum houses a collection of fine and decorative art, collected by Isabella Steward Gardner and her husband Jack Gardner, in a three storey 15th-century Venetian-style palace that surrounds an open courtyard.

When Isabella Stewart Gardner realized that the available space of her property on Beacon Street was inadequate, she commissioned architect Willard T. Sears to design a larger museum to house their collection on the Fenway, a recent landfill in Boston's Back Bay area. Construction began on the Renaissance Revival structure in June of 1899 and was completed in November 1901. The museum, originally called the Fenway Court, opened to the public on January 1, 1903. In 1999, the museum developed a strategic plan for future expansion. It was decided to build an addition to the historic palace in order to achieve greater space. A new, more modern style, wing was designed by architect Renzo Piano which opened in January 2012.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum houses one of the great art collections of the world. It includes works that rank among the most significant in their genre. The collection consists of over 2,500 objects organized into the following categories:

American Art
Ancient Art
Asian Art
Decorative Art
European Art
Furniture
Islamic Art
Metalwork
Paintings
Rare Books and Manuscripts
Sculpture
Stained Glass
Textiles
Worlds on Paper

Works of art from ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, Renaissance Italy, Asia, the Islamic world and 19th-century France and America and artists such as Titian, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Manet, Degas, Whistler and Sargent are represented in the collection.


Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was the victim of one of the most famous, yet unsolved, crimes in history. On the early morning of March 18, 1990, two thieves, disguised as City of Boston police officers, gained access to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and selectively removed thirteen priceless works of art from its galleries. The thieves handcuffed both guards and led them into the basement. There they were secured to pipes and their hands, feet, and heads were bound with duct tape. In the later morning, the next shift of security guards discovered the robbery.

The museum has identified the stolen items as:

"Rembrandt’s Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633), A Lady and Gentleman in Black (1633) and a Self-Portrait (1634); Vermeer’s The Concert (1658–1660); and Govaert Flinck’s Landscape with an Obelisk (1638); as well as a Rembrandt etching on paper, and a Chinese vase, or Ku, all taken from the Dutch Room on the second floor. Also stolen from the second floor were five drawings by the Impressionist artist Edgar Degas and a finial from the top of a pole support for a Napoleonic silk flag, both from the Short Gallery. Edouard Manet’s Chez Tortoni (1878–1880) was taken from the Blue Room on the first floor."

The perpetrators have not been identified and the artworks are still missing. The value of the art was estimated to be $500,000,000. The investigation is still open with the The Gardner Museum offering a reward up to $5,000,000 for information leading to the recovery of the stolen artwork.

Name: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Location: 280 The Fenway Boston, MA United States Phone Number: 617-566-1401 Web Site: [Web Link] Agency/Ownership: Private Hours of operation: Wednesday - Monday 11am to 5pm Thursday 11am to 9pm Closed Tuesdays Admission Fee: Adults - $15; Seniors - $12; Children - Free Gift Shop: yes Cafe/Restaurant: yes

Visit Instructions:
Post one photo of the museum that is a different view from the one on the page, and describe your visit. Add any additional information that you may have about this building. A GPSr photo is NOT required.

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.