(c) 2017 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Letter to Ralph Curtis from Cadenabbia, Italy

correspondent Robert Thompson Crawshay (1853 - 1944)

Date4 May 1897

Place MadeLombardy, Italy, Europe

MediumInk on paper

ClassificationsManuscripts

Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Accession numberARC.001079

eMuseum ID717950

EmbARK ObjectID27802

TMS Source ID11394

Last Updated9/13/24

Status

Not on view

Web CommentaryIn 1892, Isabella Stewart Gardner purchased seven gilded, carved, and painted wood chairs that once belonged to one of Renaissance Italy’s most powerful families—the Borgheses. In this letter, Robert Thompson Crawshay—who owned six chairs from the same set—asks Isabella’s advisor Ralph Curtis if he may purchase Isabella’s chairs in order to reunite the lot. Isabella denied Crawshay’s request and displayed the chairs in the Museum’s Titian Room.

BibliographyNotesDeandra Duarte, “The Prince’s Chairs in the Titian Room,” Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 23 July 2024, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/princes-chairs-titian-room

MarksNotesDated in pencil in Isabella Stewart Gardner's hand (upper right): '97
Inscribed in pencil (bottom left): [R. Crawshay to Ralph Curtis]

ProvenanceNotesProbably gift from American painter Ralph Wormeley Curtis (1854-1922) to Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1897.