Isabella Stewart Gardner

photographer Otto Rosenheim (Germany, 1871 - 1955)

subject Isabella Stewart Gardner (New York, 1840 - 1924, Boston)

Date1906

Place MadeUnited States, North America

MediumGelatin silver print

Dimensions20.3 x 25.4 cm (8 x 10 in.)

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Accession numberP33w35

eMuseum ID725151

EmbARK ObjectID24273

TMS Source ID8844

Last Updated8/9/24

Status

Not on view

Web CommentaryWhile she collected and created photographs throughout much of her life, Isabella Stewart Gardner rarely sat for professional photographers. This portrait of Gardner holding a large, unclasped volume in her hands was taken by Dr. Otto Rosenheim, a noted biochemist and amateur photographer, in London in 1906. Several years later, the photographer wrote to Gardner to ask if she might autograph a print for him to send to art historian Bernard Berenson, who was “delighted” with the original image.

BibliographyNotesRollin van N. Hadley (ed.). The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner 1887-1924 (Boston, 1987), pp. 465-466, 469.
Christina Nielsen (ed.). Sargent on Location: Gardner's First Artist-in-Residence. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2018), p. 39, fig. 27.
Anne-Marie Eze, "Une Femme Bibliophile: Isabella's Book of Hours by Bourdichon," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 21 June 2022, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/une-femme-bibliophile-isabellas-book-hours-bourdichon

MarksNotesEmbossed (lower right): O R in an oval

ProvenanceNotesProbably a gift from Otto Rosenheim to Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1910.