One Hour at The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

MUSEUM GUIDE | CABANA TRAVEL | WORLD OF CABANA

 In this series, we travel the world’s great museums - large and small - through the eyes and minds of Cabana Curators, asking one question: if you had only an hour to spare, what would you see? This week, Gabrielle Niu, Assistant Curator of the Collection and Exhibitions at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, talks Cabana through five of the museum's most notable objects and spaces.

 INTERVIEW BY EMMA BECQUE | CABANA TRAVEL | MAY 2025

Courtyard © Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

Built on newly filled marshland at the edge of Boston’s Back Bay Fens, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is hidden behind plain brick walls, its entrance giving little hint of what lies beyond. Inside, a courtyard unfolds: cloistered, symmetrical, layered with stone arcades, Roman capitals, medieval reliefs and carved marble salvaged from across Europe. 

Isabella Stewart Gardner intended it to be neither a replica nor a museum in the formal sense. Following her husband's death in 1898, she took control of the project herself, rejecting her architect’s plans and overseeing every detail. When the ceiling beams of the Gothic Room arrived too smooth, she attacked them with an axe to achieve the roughened texture she wanted. The gardens at the centre were laid out not as decoration but as part of the architecture, shifting with the seasons and altering the atmosphere of the surrounding galleries. 

Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1888; John Thomson. Platinotype, 14.5 x 10 cm © Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

The building remains close to Gardner’s original arrangement, where paintings, sculptures, textiles and rare books are set not chronologically but by mood and association. Gabrielle Niu, Assistant Curator of the Collection and Exhibitions, moves within this environment with the quiet precision demanded by a collection where nothing is left to chance. She shares five of her favorite objects and spaces, explaining in her own words why each is special and what it reveals about its collector and maker.

Ornament (Okimono): Dove on Roof Tile

Ornament (Okimono): Dove on Roof Tile, 1850-1899 © Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

"The Gardner Museum is renowned for its collection of Italian Renaissance paintings, and many of these works can be found in the Early Italian Room. However, not many visitors know that Isabella Stewart Gardner also collected Asian Art. In fact, from 1903 until a 1914 renovation, the gallery now known as the Early Italian Room was installed with artwork from Asia.

"Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner at a Yamanaka & Co. auction in Boston on 6 November 1902, this piece reflects her growing interest in Asian art. Continuing her legacy of careful documentation, the museum actively reviews and updates object records to expand access and understanding of the collection."

Ornament (Okimono): Dove on Roof Tile, 1850-1899 © Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

"Today, there are a few objects that remind us that this room was once Isabella’s gallery for Asian art. For example, if you look out the window into the Courtyard, you will find that Isabella installed a Japanese wooden sculpture onto the windowsill. The work depicts a pigeon perched on a roof tile. Today, the sculpture looks grey primarily, but look a little closer and traces of pigment suggest that it was once painted", says Niu. 

Spring and Autumn Screens

Spring: Pine Trees, early 19th century and Autumn, early 19th century screens © Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

“On the second floor of the Historic Building, you can find two of Isabella’s earliest purchases of art. The two screens form a pair, with one depicting botanicals of the spring season and the other depicting plants of the autumn season. From 1883 to 1884, Isabella and her husband took a long trip throughout Asia, visiting many locations, including sites in modern-day Japan, China, Malaysia, Cambodia, and India."

The pair of six-panel screens is a testament to the collector's eye for masterful craftsmanship. The screens were purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the dealer Kinshodo in Tokyo for 380 yen in 1883, as works by Ogata Korin (1658-1716) of the Rinpa school. “Isabella displayed the screens in her private residences before moving them to the Museum in 1903. The screens serve as a special reminder to us of Isabella’s history of collecting Asian art and her travels abroad, where she sourced unique pieces reflective of her adventurous and inquisitive personality,” explains Niu. 

Votive Stele

The Votive Stele is a tangible prayer. It is the most important non-Western artwork in the Gardner's collection © Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

“This Chinese Buddhist stele is an exemplary work of early Chinese sculpture. The work is carved on all sides and features an image of the Buddha in high relief on its front, flanked by two disciples and two bodhisattvas. The work was acquired by Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1914 through her friend and art advisor, Bernard Berenson, who saw the sculpture in Paris, France.” 

Carved in 543 CE during the Eastern Wei dynasty, this votive stele stands as the most significant non-Western work in the Gardner’s collection, commissioned by seventy-eight donors in honour of the Emperor. The Buddha rises from a base inscribed with prayers fulfilled, each figure balanced on a lotus bloom.

“Today, the impressive piece is installed in the Chinese Loggia, a long gallery with expansive glass windows overlooking the Monk’s Garden, a contemporary garden designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc.” 

Temporary Exhibitions in the Hostetter Gallery

Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden; June 26 - September 21 2025

Ming Fay in His Studio, c. 1990s. © The Estate of Ming Fay.

Today, when you visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, you enter through the New Wing designed by architect Renzo Piano in 2012. Upstairs, on the second floor, is one of the galleries that hosts the Museum’s robust special exhibition programme. 

This summer, from June 26, you can view the exhibition 'Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden. Ming Fay (1943-2025) was a New York-based artist known for his oversized sculptures of fruits, nuts, and imagined hybrid plants that he installed as gardens.

The Hostetter Gallery will be transformed into an immersive garden filled with Fay’s sculptures. Visitors will be invited to explore his delightful and fantastic work and consider how gardens can be sites for connection, memory, and creativity."

Interactive Art Wall on the First Floor of the New Building

Courtyard of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Credit Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. © Photo by Derrick Zellmann.

"The Interactive Art Wall is a profoundly personal space. Located on the First Floor, visitors can engage with the exhibition's themes in a more in-depth way.

"I find delight in this feature of the museum as each exhibition season, the Museum staff create interactive installations for visitors to express their creativity and make personal connections to the rotating exhibitions through reflection and active participation.

"This summer, the Art Wall will invite visitors to place sculptural elements on the wall, contributing to a collaborative community garden with those who come before and after - this resonates with the ethos of the museum."