A Brief Visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum.

By Sidnie Paisley Thomas

This is a collection of two short stories I wrote for my ethnographic storytelling class. The goal of the assignment was to create a creative project based on anthropological research we had done in the field. I did my research on solitude and loneliness in public spaces, where I observed and interviewed people navigating traditionally social spaces alone. (Museums may not be considered “social spaces” but I was desperate and running out of places to go.) Based on that I wrote two short stories, about two different types of lonesome museum attendees I encountered.

Story One

As I stood there staring at the painting, it felt as if she were staring back at me. Sitting in a dark wooden chair she posed casually for the portrait, her pail skin reflecting like a light beam off the teal green background she sat in front of. She wore a long, but relaxed pink gown that fell past her ankles with sleeves of white sheer fabric and a deep v- neck cut. The coral pink of her dress was so similar to the hue of her skin, I found it odd she chose to be painted in that color. Her brown mousy hair was pulled back to highlight her soft facial features, and a long chain of pearls wrapped around her neck and then cascaded down over her torso. I stood there in awe at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the portrait of the woman herself staring back at me. 

I felt as if her eyes were begging me to look back at her, to see her as she truly was. They were nearly the same color as the background, only a shade more blue than green. They locked me in a trance that held me and prevented me from looking away. She was holding something in her hand but I couldn’t recognize what, from one angle it seemed to be a large meat cleaver that she held at the handle. From others, it looked like a scroll unraveling between her fingers, or a fan she held right at the base. Whatever it was didn’t matter because all I could see were her eyes. So bright and beautiful, they captivated me with her soft glance. A glance that masked something underneath, and I knew exactly what. Melancholy, one with no origin and no ending. One that was very familiar to me. 

Ms. Gardener seemed like a woman I’d be fond of. She lived a life of traveling the world, curating art, and storing it all in her home. What more out of life could you ask for, traveling, curating, and admiring? One of the Museum attendees told me and another larger group a story while we were viewing her garden from the first floor. He said that sometimes before bed, Ms. Gardener would come down to her garden and sit in a chair located right at the center of her home. She’d there and look up into all the other floors and admire all of her work in awe, crowning herself “Queen Isabella.” She was so wondrous, and she knew that. And she made sure that every person who walked these halls knew that. Yet still, all this beauty, money, and glory can’t hide whatever pain she was hiding. 

I can feel it. It’s on every floor of this house, in every collection, on every flower, and in every curated piece of furniture. I feel it the most when I look into her eyes. Those eyes with which she inspected each piece of art that hung on these walls, the eyes watched each season as her garden sprouted and died. Her eyes have a knowledge of beauty and the divine not many others do. 

“Creepy right?”

I jumped out of my haze and looked to my right to see an older woman watching me, watching Isabella. 

“What?’ I responded, not understanding her question. 

“It’s creepy the way the painting looks at you. Like she’s getting ready to jump out of the frame or something.” 

“Right, yeah…Super creepy.” I said with a tone that indicated I wasn’t up for witty banter. 

“Ok, you have a good day.”

The woman turned slowly and walked away. Leaving me alone again with her.

Story Two

The Isabella Stewart Gardener is one of the most interesting museums in Boston. It was curated by a lone Ms. Gardener after her plans to do so alongside her husband fell apart when he died suddenly. The museum became her whole life, she traveled all across Europe and Asia collecting and curating one-of-a-kind pieces and allowing them to live in what would soon become her home. 

Aside from the art and the story of the museum’s origins, what I find most interesting about the museum is the heist. On an unsuspecting St. Patrick's day evening, two men in police uniforms were let in by security. Those officers would go on to tie the guards up, duck tape their faces and steal hundreds of millions of dollars worth of artwork. The thieves stole a total of thirteen pieces of art, including Rembrandt's one and only seascape. To this day no one knows who it was, or where the art is, and it is the largest unsolved art heist in history. In the same dramatic vein as Ms. Gardener herself, the frames from which the pieces were stolen remain empty on the walls. To this day you can still see the outline of the former works against the aged wallpaper. 

While I commend the thieves for their bravery, I feel like they went about it all wrong. Stealing the Rembrandt was an excellent move, but taking small things like the sketches and the Chinese Gu was useless. What would I have done? I would’ve taken every portrait of Isabella herself, and her favorite pieces of art as well. I would wipe her from her own home, I’d take what little was left of her and sell it for whatever I could get. Of course, there are things hanging on these walls worth so much more, but the infamy I’d live in afterward would be enough to make me rich until death. I wouldn’t be a thief, but a murderer, killing the ego of Ms. Gardener that lived on after her death.

My favorite (or least favorite) portrait of her hangs in the Vaticano. Tucked away in a small corner, the portrait depicts her sitting in a lowly wooden chair behind an offensive teal background. She wears a drooping pink gown that blends in with her skin tone all too well, and she holds what seems to be a fan in her hands. My least favorite part of the portrait is her eyes. Their deep aquamarine hue burns into your soul, it feels like she’s taking pieces of you the longer you stare back at her. The portrait was painted on the evening of the Boston Artists Festival costume ball. This was supposed to be her dressed up in her best attire, for an event which she sat on the board for. To me, she looked sad and devoid of life like I felt she always was. 

There was a young girl staring at this particular portrait, of her in all her depressing glory. She looked blank as if she was having trouble piecing together her thoughts on the image. 

“Creepy Right? I asked in a joking tone, hoping she’d understand. She turned slowly to look at me, her face seeming like I yanked her out of a sensory deprivation tank. 

“What?” she said, glaring as she had never spoken to another human before. 

I tried to explain myself, saying “It’s creepy the way the painting looks at you. Like she’s getting ready to jump out of the frame or something.” But I just felt even dumber than before. 

“Right, yeah… Super creepy.” She blinked slowly at me. 

“Ok, you have a good day,” I replied while walking away. 

Why do I despise Isabella Stewart Gardener? Because the people who admire her are just as full of themselves as she was.