The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in the Fenway neighbourhood, houses its founder's exceptional collection of European and American art, artefacts and architectural details. The 1901 building, styled after an Italian Renaissance palace, surrounds an enclosed courtyard filled with flowers.
In the 1890s both Isabella's husband and father died and she inherited a fortune of US$3.9 million. This she used to create her museum, officially acquiring her first painting for the project in 1896 (a Rembrandt self-portrait of 1629). The museum opened to the public in 1903. Created solely by Gardner and presided over by her until her death in 1924, it bears her personal stamp.
"Mrs Jack", as she was called, designed a fantasy home in the style of a 15th-century Venetian palazzo. Isabella's motto was "C'est mon plaisir" and this is a museum peopled with anything that pleased her, devoid of labels on the paintings so that visitors form their own unmediated reactions to the pictures. Masterpieces meet you at every corner, higgledy-piggledy with Mexican tiles, medieval gateways and the odd carved lion.