{"product_id":"chasing-beauty-the-life-of-isabella-stewart-gardner-9780063378353","title":"Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe vivid and masterful story of\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eIsabella Stewart Gardner--creator of one of America's most stunning museums--an American original\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003ewhose own life was remade by art. Includes archival photos of Isabella's world, museum, \u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eand the art\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eshe collected.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIsabella Stewart Gardner's museum, with its plain exterior enfolding an astonishing four-story Italian palazzo, rose from Boston's Fens at the turn of the twentieth century. Its treasures encompassed not only masterwork paintings but tapestries, rare books, prints, porcelains, and fine furniture.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn extraordinary achievement of storytelling and scholarship, \u003cem\u003eChasing Beauty\u003c\/em\u003e illuminates the fascinating ways the museum and its holdings can be seen as a kind of memoir, dazzling and haunting, created with objects instead of words and displayed per Isabella's wishes in the exact placements she initially curated.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBorn in 1840 to a privileged New York family, Isabella Stewart married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner as she turned twenty. She was misunderstood by Boston's insular society and suffered the death of her only child, a beloved boy, not yet two years old.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut in time came friendships, glittering and bohemian; awe-inspiring world travels; and collecting beautiful things with a keen eye and competitive pace--all these were balm for loss. Henry James and John Singer Sargent--whose portrait of Isabella was a masterpiece and a scandal--came to recognize her originality. Bernard Berenson, leading connoisseur of the Italian Renaissance, was her art dealer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom award-winning author Natalie Dykstra, \u003cem\u003eChasing Beauty\u003c\/em\u003e is the story of the complex and singular woman behind one of the most fascinating museums in the nation and the world--a tale of beauty and loss, grit and American self-invention.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Mariner Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51185971790098,"sku":"9780063378353","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_6d873660-f030-4d9c-bb8f-e1c5f13418ba.jpg?v=1744598628","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/chasing-beauty-the-life-of-isabella-stewart-gardner-9780063378353","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}