Isabella Stewart Gardner, the legendary art collector and hostess who built and held court in the Venetian-style palazzo that still houses her fine art collection on the Fenway, knew everyone who was anyone on the culture scene during Boston’s Gilded Age, and she entertained in the highest style, probably with very good manners. Kristin Parker, archivist and collection manager at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, has found among Mrs. Gardner’s personal effects Ladies’ Guide to Perfect Gentility, a Victorian-era Miss Manners that she describes as being "very well-thumbed"; it includes the following advice: "Ladies should never dine with their gloves on, unless their hands are not fit to be seen." Parker, who has read Mrs. Gardner’s letters, opened her dresser drawers, and leafed through her cookbooks and guest books, explains that it would not be unusual to find such diverse talents as operatic soprano Nelly Melba, philosopher George Santayana, art historian Okakura Kakuzo, jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, and painter John Singer Sargent all engaged in lively conversation over a festive dinner at what was then known as Fenway Court.
It is in Mrs. Gardner’s grand spirit of hospitality that the Gardner Museum displays its lavish Holiday Table each year; Parker will bring the setting to life in a free gallery talk at noon this Wednesday in the museum’s Dutch Room. There, a 16th-century Tuscan table that Mrs. Gardner imported from the dining hall of an Italian monastery has been set for 12 with napkins of gold-bordered damask cloth, glittering ruby-glass claret glasses, and a lasciviously spreading purple Lady’s Slipper orchid centerpiece arranged in a lead crystal bowl. "Orchids were Mrs. Gardner’s favorite flowers," says Parker, who has overseen the setting of the Holiday Table for the past two years. "She was a horticulturist in her time as well as an art collector, so we get the best orchid from our garden for her centerpiece." Parker aims to capture the feeling of the bygone era, down to the 15-course menu posted nearby, which she says is drawn from one of Mrs. Gardner’s favorite, most marked-up cookbooks, Mrs. Beeton’s Everyday Cookery and Housekeeping Book.
The Dutch Room itself is a spacious second-floor gallery that’s inhabited year-round by a cocky self-portrait of the dashing young Rembrandt, a portrait by Peter Paul Rubens that practically clinks with armor and military decoration, and facing portraits of a stern couple painted by Hans Holbein. "We have letters saying that Mrs. Gardner entertained in the Dutch Room," Parker points out. "We also know from various descriptions that when she dressed for these dinners, she would be glinting with jewels. These candelabras are always in the Dutch Room, and when Mrs. Gardner was alive, candles would have been lit in every room — we aren’t allowed to light candles in the museum — and there would be a fire in the fireplace, and incense burning everywhere. It would have been dripping with atmosphere!"
Parker is still researching the history and details of Mrs. Gardner’s entertaining style; in future years she would like to re-create Isabelle’s habit of putting personalized presents at each guest’s plate, or incorporate the hostess’s handwritten music programs into the display. "But mostly," she says, "we hope that the Holiday Table encourages people’s imagination, by showing the art of entertaining and getting people to think about how we do or don’t do it today."
"Mrs. Gardner’s Holiday Table" is on view in the Dutch Room at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 280 the Fenway, at Palace Road, through January 12. Kristin Parker will illuminate the installation with a talk titled "Mrs. Gardner’s Victorian China, Silver and Stemware" this Wednesday, December 18, at noon. The talk is free with museum admission; call (617) 566-1401.
