220“snarling, blear-eyed bulldog”: Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 283.
220already decided to create a museum: Chong, Lingner, and Zahn, Eye of the Beholder, xiii.
220Europa: Saarinen, Proud Possessors, 34. “Now, please, be reasonable,” Berenson wrote her once, “you cannot possess all the great paintings that come on the market.”
220“picture-habit”: Hadley, Letters of Berenson and Gardner, 63.
220“I have not one cent”: Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 187.
220“I am breathless . . . all of joy!!!”: Chong, Lingner, and Zahn, Eye of the Beholder, 105.
222“The wind and the weather”: Henry James, “The Grand Canal,” Scribner’s Magazine 12, no. 5 (November 1892), 538.
222“rois en exil”: Henry James, Italian Hours (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909), 57.
222“positively scandalous” . . . “interested in Venetian gondoliers”: McCauley et al., Gondola Days, 115. See also xiv–xv for discussion of Venice as a less conventional, sensual, place of exile, and Henry James cited as a closeted homosexual.
223According to legend, the Curtis family: Ibid., 60–63.
223“pretty stupid as a constant companion”: Ibid., 18.
223Henry James came to visit: Ibid., 144.
224uncanny resemblance to Belle: Ibid., xv.
224Photographs from Venice: Ibid., 20, 23. Gondoliers were “for hire in every sense of the term,” 20.
224The artist brought an Italian . . . until the artist’s death: Ibid., 110–15. Jacques-Émile Blanche recalled seeing the portrait hanging in Sargent’s studio and remarked, rather ungraciously, “I wait, under the portrait of the young gondolier, who, now old, remains there, the master’s faithful dog.”
224adventure in acquisition: Carter, Gardner and Fenway Court, 166–67. McCauley et al., Gondola Days, 33.
225“more favorable time”: McCauley et al., Gondola Days, 33.
225“gondola gossip”: Ralph Curtis to I. S. Gardner, June 1, 1885, Gardner Museum Archives.
225“My dear Queen Isabella”: Ibid., April 13 [1894], Gardner Museum Archives.
225“Society Leader Breaks Leg” . . . “water-melon pink toque”: Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 204–05.
226“invent a new system”: Smith, Interesting People, 154.
227Jack suffered a stroke: Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 209–10.
227Belle inherited: Ibid., 216; Carter, Gardner and Fenway Court, 173–74.
227“Boston’s most interesting widow”: Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 216.
228honoring Jack’s wish: Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 212. Buying open land, following Jack’s wish.
228“cosmic and insatiable”: Saarinen, Proud Possessors, 26.
229A new entrance: In 2012 the museum added an entryway designed by Renzo Piano. In making the necessary renovations to the original building, museum officials had to get permission from the attorney general of Massachusetts, as any change to the museum would violate Belle’s express wishes.
229“seductive siren”: Saarinen, Proud Possessors, 51.
229took up a brush: Goldfarb, Gardner and Fenway Court, 43. Color of the pink stucco walls and Belle showing workmen how to paint them.
230Ca’ d’Oro: Or House of Gold, had its own romantic history. In 1846 a Russian prince, Alexander Troubetzkoy, bought the fifteenth-century palazzo for his lover, a diva ballerina. At that time she already owned three other houses on the Grand Canal, trophies from her suitors.
232true Renaissance Venetian palazzo: Goldfarb, Gardner Museum, 16.
232four-leaf clover: Carter, Gardner and Fenway Court, 177.
232“never knows what is to be done”: Ibid., 184.
232Belle won the battle: Ibid., 184–85.
232“special legislation”: Luisa Lambri, Portrait (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2012), 17. Quoting diary entry by Willard Sears, August 1, 1900.
232Feuds: Ibid., 17. Chong, Lingner, and Zahn, Eye of the Beholder, xiv.
233insurance policy: Lambri, Portrait, 13.
233“Bolgi”: Carter, Gardner and Fenway Court, 182–83.
2341904 photograph: Goldfarb, Gardner Museum, 21.
234“building a new house”: Chong, Lingner, and Zahn, Eye of the Beholder, xv.
234Like one of the workmen: Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 233.
235unveiling ceremonies: Carter, Gardner and Fenway Court, 197. Goldfarb, Gardner Museum, 18.
235“Punctually”: Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 243.
235“Rajah”: Ibid., 111. In 1886 Bella purchased the two diamonds at Tiffany & Company in New York for more than forty-six thousand dollars.
236“Listening to music in such a hall”: Ibid., 244.
236“aesthetic perfection”: William James to I. S. Gardner, January 3, 1903, Gardner Museum Archives. Carter, Gardner and Fenway Court, 200.
236Ruth St. Denis: Carter, Gardner and Fenway Court, 211. Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 247–48.
237“in my shirt-sleeves”: Sargent to I. S. Gardner, September 14, 1902, Gardner Museum Archives.
237“Venice misses you”: Ibid.
238“permanent abode at Fenway Court”: Ibid., May 1903, Gardner Museum Archives.
239“Don’t touch”: Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 317, 345 note.
239“patting”: Smith, Interesting People, 166.
239“I will not despair of our age”: Goldfarb, Gardner Museum, 18.
239“simply improbable!”: William Sturgis Bigelow to I. S. Gardner, August 1, 1902, Gardner Museum Archives.
239“magnificent”: Henry Duveen to I. S. Gardner, January 19, 1915, Gardner Museum Archives.
239“knocked flat”: Richard Watson Gilder to I. S. Gardner, April 8, 1903, Gardner Museum Archives.
240“dazed”: Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer to I. S. Gardner, March 12, [no year], Gardner Museum Archives.
240“the only palace” . . . “boiled”: Charles Fletcher Lummis to I. S. Gardner, December 31, 1904, Gardner Museum Archives.
240“the sobriety of taste”: Francis Marion Crawford to I. S. Gardner, June 12, 1907, Gardner Museum Archives.
240“It is alive”: Mrs. Fiske Warren (Gretchen Osgood Warren) and Margaret Osgood to I. S. Gardner, no date, Gardner Museum Archives.
240“breathless”: Ethel Barrymore to I. S. Gardner, April 1902, Gardner Museum Archives.
241“an acknowledged public benefactor”: Santayana, The Middle Span, 124.
241Sargent’s masterful El Jaleo: Goldfarb, Gardner Museum, 36.
241“If you really think”: Chong, Lingner, and Zahn, Eye of the Beholder, 158.
242parsimony: Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 283–84.
242embolism: Ibid., 309. Morris Carter, who was present for the attack, gives the date December 26. Carter, Gardner and Fenway Court, 245.
242“fleecy cloud” . . . “paint her portrait”: Tharp, Mrs. Jack, 318–19.
244“Carry my coffin high”: Ibid., 3.
Epilogue
245“to pay her a last tribute”: John Singer Sargent to William C. Endicott, August 9, 1924, Gardner Museum Archives.
245“paughtraits”: Charteris, John Sargent, 155.
245“Ask me to paint your gates”: Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, Later Portraits, 122. Despite his repeated vows that his career as a portraitist was over, Sargent did complete two three-quarter-length formal portraits in 1925—one of Lady Curzon, which he had been promising to do for years—and another of the publishing magnate George A. Macmillan, a fellow member of the Society of Dilettanti, a private club of aesthetes in which Sargent served as “Official Painter.” Sargent executed the latter painting with the proviso that it would be a free gift to the society, 272–73.
245“empty bravura passages”: http://hyperallergic.com/239398/the-unsettled-legacy-of-john-singer-sargent/.
246“Now the American things are done”: Olson, John Singer Sargent, 268.
246“Au revoir”: Mount, John Singer Sargent, 1957 ed., 333–34. Description of his final evening. Olson, John Singer Sargent, 268–69.
246At midday the trustee: Mount, John S
inger Sargent, 1957 ed., 1.
246“End of an Epoch in English Art”: London Times, April 16, 1925.
246“LABORE EST ORARE”: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=20246&PIpi=2386719.
INDEX
Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
Note: Page numbers after 250 refer to Notes.
Adams, Clover, 73
Adams, Henry, 73, 194, 239
Agnew, Lady, of Lochnaw, Sargent’s portrait of, 27
Albert, Prince, 128
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 258
American Society of Miniature Painters, 104
American Society of Painters, 104
Amory, Cleveland, The Proper Bostonians, 181
Angelico, Fra, 172, 217
Art Students League, New York, 62
Astor, Caroline Schermerhorn, 124–25, 175
Astor, John Jacob II, 159
Astor, John Jacob III, 136
Astor, William B., 120, 122, 164
Astor, William B. Jr., 124
Astor, William Waldorf (later, Viscount Astor), 136
Astor family:
and Chanler family, 119, 120, 122, 124, 155, 159, 162, 164, 181
and divorce, 276–77
fortune of, 124
“Astor orphans,” 119, 120
Atlantic Monthly, 59
Austen, Jane, 125
Balfour, Arthur, 144
Barrymore, Ethel, 75, 85, 99, 102, 240
Beaman, Charles, 72–73
Beaux, Cecilia, 239
Belleroche, Albert de, xix
Bellow, Saul, 173
Berenson, Bernard, 166, 169
and Gardner, 213–18, 220, 242
Sketch for a Self-Portrait, 217–18, 294–95
and Villa I Tatti, 218
Bernhardt, Sarah, 240
Bigelow, William Sturgis, 206, 239
Blair, John, 36
Bloomingdale Asylum, White Plains, 159–62, 164
Bohm, Ebba, 89, 94, 98
Boit family, 204
Bonchurch, England, 128–30
Bonnat, Léon, 143
Boston:
abolitionism in, 184
Back Bay neighborhood of, 182, 195, 221, 226, 228
Brahmin aristocracy in, 181–83, 184, 186, 214, 223, 240–41
Dante Circle in, 195
the Fens in, 226–27, 228, 234
Gardner Museum/Fenway Court in, see Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Museum of Fine Arts in, 245–46
Puritanism in, 206
St. Botolph Club Exhibition (1888), 146, 203–4, 211
Boston Athenaeum, 54, 101, 149
Boston Cecilia society, 236
Boston Public Library, Sargent’s wall decorations for, 20, 21, 25, 34, 147, 237, 243
Boston Symphony Orchestra, 60, 77, 95, 235, 236
Botticelli, Sandro, 217
The Tragedy of Lucretia, 213–14
Bourget, Paul, 202
Broadway, England, Fairchild family in, 57–58
Browning, Robert, 125, 171
Bryan, William Jennings, 71
Bunker, Dennis Miller, 62
Byard, Theodore, 225
Caesar, Julius, 177
Carlyle, Thomas, 129
Carmencita (dancer), 209–10, 211–12, 292–93
Carr, Alice Strettell, Terry’s Macbeth gown designed by, 4, 41
Carr, Doll, 40–41
Carr, Joseph, 4, 16–17
Carter, Morris, 225
Cassatt, Mary, Modern Woman, 65
Cecil, Arthur, 28
Chanler, Alida (sister), 124, 146, 154–55, 158
Chanler, Egerton (brother), 120, 122, 141
Chanler, Elizabeth Winthrop, xvi, 118
birth of, 125
in Boston, 181–82
death of, 173–74
debilitating illness of, xix, 119, 137–41, 143, 172
family of, 164
guardians of, 136, 137, 138–39, 140, 143, 273
and her father, 125–27, 143
and Jack Chapman, see Chapman, John Jay
marriage prospects of, 119, 143, 155
maternal presence of, 121–22, 126, 127, 167
Old World manners of, 171–72
orphaned in England, 127–37, 138
pregnancies of, 163, 167–68
and Queen Victoria, 144–45
Sargent’s portrait of, xiii, 118–19, 125, 145, 146, 147–49, 174–75
schooling of, 125, 126–27, 128, 132–33, 139
socializing, 144, 146–47
travels of, 142, 156–57, 165–66, 276
wealth of, 142–43
Chanler, John Armstrong “Archie” (brother), 120, 121, 126, 136–37, 170
in Bloomingdale Asylum, 159–62, 164
Chanler, John Winthrop (father), 120, 122, 125–27, 136, 138, 143, 271, 272
Chanler, Lewis (brother), 122
Chanler, Margaret (sister), 123, 165, 171
death of, 175
and Jack and Elizabeth’s relationship, 155–56, 279
and Rokeby, 125, 141
and Sargent’s portrait of Elizabeth, 146, 148, 174, 175
travels of, 146, 156–57, 162–63
Chanler, Margaret Astor (mother), 118, 120, 125
Chanler, Marion (brother), 122, 141–42
Chanler, Robert (brother), 119, 120, 142, 145–46
Chanler, Willie (brother), 122, 142, 161, 163, 279
Chanler, Winthrop “Wintie” (brother), 121, 126, 136–37, 139, 162, 163, 272
Chanler family:
and Astor family, 119, 120, 122, 124, 155, 159, 162, 164, 181
children/siblings of, 121, 122–24, 125, 159–60, 162
debating skills of, 121
family scandal, 159–62
and financial concerns, 160, 164
and ghosts, 123, 124
papers of, 136, 142, 167–68, 173
pets of, 120–21, 141
Rokeby estate of, 118, 120–23, 125, 127, 136, 138, 140–42, 149, 152, 153, 155, 159, 164, 175
servants of, 122–24
social circles of, 124–25, 143, 144, 146–47, 152, 155
travels of, 142
Chapman, Chanler Armstrong, 164, 170–71, 172–73, 175
Chapman, Conrad, 157, 164, 175
Chapman, Elizabeth, see Chanler, Elizabeth Winthrop
Chapman, John Jay “Jack,” 149–59, 173
in Austrian Tyrol, 166
and “Bingen on the Rhine,” 172
breakdown of, 163–66
“Cape Cod, Rome, and Jerusalem,” 170
death of, 172
in Edgewater, 166–67
and Elizabeth, 149, 152–59, 160–61, 163–66, 167, 168–69, 171–72, 200, 279, 282
and Gardner family, 200, 201
literary career of, 168, 170, 172, 174, 200
and Minna, 151, 154
and Minna’s death, 157–58
Ode on the Sailing of our Troops for France, 170
private wars of, 170, 284
self-induced injury of, 150
and Sylvania, 167, 172, 175
and World War I, 168–70
Chapman, John Jay Jr., 164, 166
Chapman, Maria Weston, 150
Chapman, Minna Timmins, 149–50, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157–58, 166
Chapman, Olivia, 172
Chapman, Victor Emmanuel, 151, 164, 167, 168–69
Chase, Salmon P., 6
Chase, William Merritt, 62, 211
Christian Science, 91, 93–94, 114, 165
Christo, 57
Churchill, Mabel, 85
Churchill, Winston, 85, 134, 275
City of Paris (steamship), 13
Civil War, U.S., 183, 184
Clark, Davida, 87
Cleopatra, 176–77, 188, 225
Cocteau, Jean, 111
Colnaghi art deal
ers, London, 216
Colorado:
“Garden of the Gods” in, 8
Rocky Mountains in, 7
Colorado Springs, 7–8, 9, 30, 32–33, 39, 51
Colyer-Fergusson, Sir Thomas, 19
Coolidge, Joseph Randolph, 184
Coolidge, Thomas Jefferson, 199, 211, 241
Cornish Arts Colony, New Hampshire, 72–76, 117
children’s projects in, 75, 85–87, 90
masque performed in, 94–98
and Saint-Gaudens, 72–75, 87–88, 94–98
Cox, Kenyon, 76
Crawford, Francis Marion “Frank,” 196, 204, 225–26, 240
Cross, Jane, 122–23
Curtis, Ariana Wormley, 223
Curtis, Daniel Sargent, 223
Curtis, Ralph, 223, 225
Curzon, George, 144
Curzon, Lady, 298
Cushing, Edith, 100, 101
Cust, Lionel, 166
Dante Alighieri, 195–96
Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, 86
Davidge, Clara Potter, 91
Degas, Edgar, 213
Dewing, Thomas, 88
Dickens, Charles, 129–30, 133
d’Inverno, Nicola, 224
Disraeli, Benjamin, 217
Doherty, Knucksey, 291
Don Carlos, of Spain, 222
Duncan, Isadora, 75
Dunham, Carroll, 70–71
Dunham, Helen, 26, 27
Dunham, Katie, 26–27, 47
Dunham family, 10
Duveen, Henry, 239
Eddy, Mary Baker, 93–94, 114
Edward VII, king of England, 144
Elizabeth I, queen of England, 25
Emmet, Alida Chanler, 124, 154–55
Emmet, Temple, 154–55, 163, 283
Endecott/Endicott, John, 183
Erie Canal, 179
Eugénie, Empress, 185, 274
Exposition Universelle, Paris, 63
Fairchild, Blair (brother), 100, 101, 109
Fairchild, Charles (father), 58–59, 64
aging of, 99–100, 102–3
and Atlantic Monthly, 59
death of, 103
financial problems of, 76–77, 80, 99
and Sargent, 55, 61, 102, 116
Fairchild, Charles Jr. (brother), 77, 84, 100–101
Fairchild, Gordon (brother), 102, 103–4, 108–9, 110
Fairchild, Jack (brother), 101–2
Fairchild, Lily (mother), 64, 101, 204
and Charles, 99–100, 103
death of, 107–8
and Sally, 103, 107–8, 109, 116
and Stevenson, 61–62, 102
Fairchild, Lucia, 61–72
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