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(c) 2024 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Peonies
(c) 2024 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
(c) 2024 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Peonies

painter (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1853 - 1935, London)
Dateabout 1919
Place MadeUnited States, North America
MediumOil on canvas board
Dimensions36 x 26 cm (14 3/16 x 10 1/4 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Accession numberP11w14
eMuseum ID724013
EmbARK ObjectID10864
TMS Source ID131
Last Updated11/19/24
Status
Not on view
Web CommentaryWhile violets were Isabella's favorite flowers, peonies must have been a close runner-up. She cultivated the pretty plants in her extensive gardens at her home in Brookline and won first prize from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for her "vase of [peony] blooms on long stems, arranged for effect."

Her friend, art collector, and design theorist, Denman Ross, gave Isabella this painting of pink peonies which she displayed near her desk in the Macknight Room.
BibliographyNotesPhilip Hendy. Catalogue of Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), p. 300.
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 70.
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), pp. 207-08, ill.
Elizabeth Reluga, "Isabella's Peonies," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 9 June 2020, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/isabellas-peonies 
MarksNotesSigned (lower left): DENMAN W ROSS
Printed label (affixed to the back to the board): Russell's / Patented March 18, 1879. / Canvas Board. / Size, 10 x 16 inches
ProvenanceNotesGift from Denman Waldo Ross to Isabella Stewart Gardner by 1919.
(c) 2015 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Denman Waldo Ross
about 1908
(c) 2015 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Denman Waldo Ross
about 1903
(c) 2015 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Denman Waldo Ross
1919
(c) 2015 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Wilton Lockwood
about 1913
(c) 2018 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
William Morris Hunt
1863
(c) 2023 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Unknown
1700 -1750
(c) 2015 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Rosa Bonheur
19th century
(c) 2014 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Giuseppe Zais
1730-1781
(c) 2014 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Giuseppe Zais
1730-1781
(c) 2015 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
John Singer Sargent
1882