from The Magazine ANTIQUES, March/April 2013 | In recent decades, few provinces of human creativity have fallen into swifter or more thorough disrepute than the society portrait. So steeply have its fortunes declined that the latest generation might be surprised to learn that this genre once held a position of signal honor among the varied forms of painting. Indeed, a …
Great Estates: Fenway Court, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston
Fenway Court, the former home of Isabella Stewart Gardner, gives added meaning to the notion of a house museum. Built in the style of a fifteenth-century Venetian palace, it was conceived as both a residence and a museum. With the help of many great advisers, Gardner amassed-and later, meticulously arranged-a superlative collection of fine and decorative arts, architecture, and rare …