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(c) 2017 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Victor Chapman
(c) 2017 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
(c) 2017 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Victor Chapman

photographer
Dateabout 1890
Place MadeUnited States, North America
MediumAlbumen print
Dimensions30.5 x 25.2 cm (12 x 9 15/16 in.)
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Accession numberARC.009221
eMuseum ID727115
EmbARK ObjectID24958
TMS Source ID9158
Last Updated8/14/24
Status
Not on view
Web CommentaryThis photograph memorializes Victor Chapman, the first American pilot to die in World War I and son to one of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s closest friends. After his death, the bereaved Chapmans presented Gardner with a small panel painting, Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, in Victor’s memory. She placed it on an easel in the Early Italian Room with a memorial wreath, but saved this photograph of Victor as an infant—close to the age of her own son when he died—for her personal archive.
MarksNotesInscribed in pencil (front) in Isabella Stewart Gardner's hand: Victor

ProvenanceNotesProbably a gift from American essayist and poet Mr. John Jay Chapman (1862-1933) and Mrs. John Jay Chapman (Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler, 1866-1937) to Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1916 .