Collection as Creation: Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Fenway Court
Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Fenway Court in Boston has long been interpreted as an exemplar of aestheticism in museum design. Beneath the beautiful surface, however, the ahistorical aspects of Gardner’s creation suggest more complicated motives for her installations. Analysis of the courtyard, Titian Room, and Spanish Cloister, specifically reveals that Gardner wilfully obscured the history of works of art she owned. She used architectural fragments in unconventional arrangements, combined objects from different times and places, built fictive settings that looked authentic, and laced the entire museum with references to herself. This process of decontextualization enabled Gardner to situate her collections firmly and irreversibly in a monument of her own design. By casting history into oblivion, she preserved her memory as both collector and creator.