C

It was piled up steadily.
became in Paris something
tution. He did not strugg
nown. There is a pretty sto
quy between him and M. C
of Fine Arts, about the cross
of Honor. The official wo
cared to have it and on Gav
an affirmative reply offered
paper with which to make
the honor. If the cross dep
asking for it, said Gavar
never receive it. Later, in
the decoration without plea
de Nieuwerkerke saw to i
lacked nothing of appreciat
nition when he closed his
and he could close them wi
tion of an artist who had en
left behind him a body of w
in the nature of things, to
alive. The pictures of a pa
paratively limited in numb
more or less stationary. T
lithographer are prodigiou
and carry his art everywhe
susceptible of the widest c
of Gavarni are like those
repute is, I should say, f
now. Is it matched by a
his day has rarely develop
influence? Hardly. Picto
gayety which was peculia
istic of him. The other day
ject in my mind I looke
"Feu Pierrot" of that jo
Willette, who should ha
something of Gavarni's ve
ern Frenchman could hav
the book left a rather dubi
mouth. After the high-b
varni the fun of Montm
little coarse, the levities of
a little vulgar. It was
that set Gavarni upon suc
it was his distinction and
it was something that the
man strangely neglects, I
he thinks that it lies outsi
It was the sense of beau
possession of that, I thi
Gavarni what he was, n
satirist but a great artist

One
НЕ
E led a long, successful, and, in the
main, unadventurous life.
rather surprising episode arrests his biog-
raphers. Once, he went to London, to
spend a few weeks and remained there for
several years. He had introductions to
smooth his way into the presence of
Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort,
but for some occult reason he scamped
his courtly opportunities and devoted
himself to observation of the ordinary
walks of life. He had his misanthropic
moods, and latterly the philosopher in
him knew some sad moments. The death
of a son bore heavily upon his spirit and
he suffered a material vexation which
sorely exasperated him. Gavarni was an
impassioned lover of flowers and trees,
and he was happy in cultivating his Au-
teuil garden. But the Haussmannization
of Paris spoiled all that, a new railway
cutting right into his domain. Still, there
was the success of which I have spoken.

for

mething like an insti ot struggle for his repretty story of a colloand M. Cavé, Director the cross of the Legion official wondered if he d on Gavarni's making ly offered him pen and to make a request e cross depended on his id Gavarni, he would Later, in 1852, Comte saw to it that he get thout pleading. He had appreciation and rece closed his eyes in 180c. se them with the resigna who had enjoyed life and body of work calculated things, to keep his name res of a painter are cod in number and remain ionary. The prints of prodigiously multiple everywhere. The traits like those of an author. e widest circulation. H ald say, fairly universi. ched by as extensive an ly. Pictorial satire since y developed that veir as peculiarly character other day with this sch d I looked through the of that jocund humors should have recapture varni's verve if any ma could have done so. B ther dubious taste in he high-bred art of G f Montmartre seemed levities of the Chat N It was breeding, upon such an eminen tion and his genius. As ; that the modern dras eglects, perhaps becass de his pals

VOL. LXXVII

MARCH, 1925

NO. 3

Mrs. Gardner and Her Masterpiece

THE GIFT OF FENWAY COURT TO THE PUBLIC

BY ELIZABETH WARD PERKINS

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

ROVINCIALISM a brilliant, thoroughly social life, in order lives in cities as com- to train herself to find in persons, objects, placently as in villages; and pictures the materials for her major however large the com- interest. Only after she had lived in Bosmunity, in every one ton for some time, and many years before there are only a few she demonstrated to Americans the funcworld-minded citizens tion of a museum as a place where works whose individual point of art enhance each other in a due relaof view leavens the dulness of the crowd. tion, rather than a storage for isolated exBoston was fortunate in being kept alert hibits, her house at 152 Beacon Street held for many years by a woman of the worlds the great Titian, her first important purof art, letters, and society. Although Mrs. chase. It was not the first house the Gardner travelled widely after her mar- Gardners occupied in Boston. From 1862 riage, her continuity of living was in Bos- to 1876 they lived at 150 Beacon. At ton with her husband's many relations that time they bought the house next door, and the friends whom she continued to at- threw the two houses together, and lived tract to the end of her long life. there in winter until Fenway Court was completed. In 1884 John Lowell Gardner inherited the fine old family place, Green Hill, in Brookline, after his father's death. The important years of Mrs. Gardner's life as a collector of art were spent in the three dwellings, so different in character and only a few miles apartBeacon Street, Green Hill, and Fenway Court, now the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Born in the city of New York on the 14th of April, 1839, Isabella Stewart was plain of face and beautiful of person. She spent her girlhood in her native town, went to school in Paris, and at the age of twenty-one married John Lowell Gardner, of Boston, the brother of a school friend with whom she went to stay after the two girls had returned from Europe. Her dominant personality and particular choice of self-expression made her a national as well as a local figure. Her friendships were international, her ambassadors everywhere, but the focus was in Boston. No other city could have given her a frame so becomingly in contrast, yet duly subordinated to her insistence on the adventure of being herself.

It was twenty years or more after her

The greater public knew of Fenway Court as "Mrs. Jack Gardner's Italian Palace." In the Beacon Street house were found the same elements out of which Fenway Court materialized later. A tall, fragrant Mimosa-tree, its hanging blossoms ready for bees, was an unusual thing to find growing in a house on Beacon Street, a house crammed with pictures

and her charming voice, she w of listeners, setting the pace a innocent Socratic questions sudden definite opinion; but th sons always found that they most of the talking, giving the any information they might for her final uses.

time. But here the very air was weighted
with meaning. On the threshold one was
aware of the masters in their original ex-
pression, according to the fashion of all
time. Centuries and the races of man
jostled one another in that Beacon Street
drawing-room, as do the nations in our
republic. The effect was startling yet
harmonious, the negative was left out and
incongruities were bound together by the
note of character and interest common to
all.
Mrs. Gardner herself liked to surprise
and to excite to further questioning.

The following anecdote Mrs. Gardner in these early On a cold New England wi sat under the great Mimosa a confusion of beautiful ol overfull Beacon Street house to William Haseltine, an Ame who lived in Rome, never but hearing all he had to te

Mr. Haseltine had been s his environment to vivid a walking trip in an obscure At rest in a mountain village in a dim old church a glint gray aloft. An investigati