The Art of Scandal: The Life and Times of Isabella Stewart Gardner - Hardcover

Shand-Tucci, Douglass

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060186437 ISBN 13: 9780060186432

Publisher: Harpercollins, 1997

Synopsis

An intriguing portrait of an eccentric and passionate woman who compiled one of the finest art collections in America is set against a backdrop of late nineteenth-century Boston society and examines her personal life, marriage, interest in art, and many accomnplishments.

About this title

Review:

Henry James fictionalized her, John Singer Sargent painted her, Bernard Berenson advised her. But art collector extraordinaire Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) was more than a rich socialite who lucked into friendships with the leading cultural figures of her day. Boston historian Douglass Shand-Tucci convincingly claims her as a pioneering multiculturalist--her famous museum in Fenway Court enshrined Asian art as well as that of the old masters--and a rebel who befriended Jews, homosexuals, and other outcasts from Victorian society. Shand-Tucci's highly colored, romantic prose aptly evokes his fiery, willful, egotistical subject.

About the Author:

Douglas Shand-Tucci is a historian of American art and architecture and New England studies. His most recent book, Boston Bohemia, 1881-1900,ÿ was one of five 1996 Winship/PEN New England Award finalists for best book of the year by a New England author. He lives in Boston's Back Bay at the Hotel Vendome, a place much frequented by both Isabella Stewart Gardner and John Singer Sargent.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harpercollins
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0060186437
• ISBN 13: 9780060186432
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 351