The Best of Boston - Gauguin, Monet & Sargent

When travelers tell us they plan to spend a week in New York, our initial response is to suggest that a 10-day visit to Boston and New York City would be ideal. For art lovers, Boston is a relaxed place to contemplate “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” (shown below), the monumental mural Paul Gauguin painted on heavy burlap in Tahiti between 1897 and 1898. Across the Charles River from Boston, in Cambridge, amazing portraits by the greatest painters from the 17th- through the 20th-century await your gaze at the Harvard Art Museums.

Gauguin’s Tahitian masterpiece “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” (detail above) is displayed among other iconic works of art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which also owns 35 oil paintings by Claude Monet and the world’s most comprehensive collection of John Singer Sargent’s oeuvre. The nine paintings shown below were on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston as part of the show entitled “Fashioned by Sargent.” Additional information on this special exhibit appears later in this article.

*Lady Agnew of Lochnaw*, 1892 (above) & *Cashmere*, 1908 (detail below) by John Singer Sargent

*Miss Jane Evans*, 1898 by John Singer Sargent

*Édouard Pailleron*, 1879 by John Singer Sargent

*Miss Elsie Palmer*, 1889-90 by John Singer Sargent

*Cashmere*, circa 1908 by John Singer Sargent

*Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth*, 1889 by John Singer Sargent

*Mrs. Leopold Hirsch*, 1902 by John Singer Sargent

Founded in 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts moved in 1909 to its present location near the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum — a fine example of Venetian Gothic Revival architecture with an enchanting glass-covered garden courtyard (pictured below), the first of its kind in the United States.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Spanish Dancer by Sargent in Gardner Boston

In the 1890s, Isabella and John Gardner realized that their home on Beacon Street in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood was too small to house their growing collection of art, which included Fra Angelico’s “Assumption and Dormition of the Virgin” (below left), paintings by Botticelli, Titian, Velázquez and Sargent, and a drawing by Michelangelo. Following John’s death in 1898, Isabella purchased land in the marshy Fenway area to realize the couple’s shared dream of building a museum to house their art treasures. The museum (below right) was completed in 1901 in the style of a 15th-century Venetian palace and opened to the public two years later. 13 artworks (including Vermeer’s “The Concert” and Rembrandt’s only known seascape, “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee”) were stolen from the Gardner Museum in 1990. A $10 million reward remains in place for information leading to the recovery of the art, as this crime remains unsolved.

Gardner Museum Boston, Religious golden-blue painting

*Self-Portrait, Age 23*, 1629 by Rembrandt van Rijn

Gardner Museum Boston, garden inside with red flowers and statues

Gardner Museum Boston, garden palm tree with arch

Gardner Museum Boston, garden with red flowers — The Gardner’s Courtyard (left) & *Lamentation Over the Dead Christ,* 1503 by Raphael (right)

Gardner Museum Boston, Rafaell painting — The Gardner’s Courtyard (left) & *Lamentation Over the Dead Christ,* 1503 by Raphael (right)

Gardner Museum Boston, Virgin with Sleeping Child — *Virgin with Sleeping Child on a Parapet*, 1470 by Giovanni Bellini (left) & *Virgin and Child on a Parapet,* 1447 by Francesco Francia (right)

Gardner Museum Boston, Virgin with Child — *Virgin with Sleeping Child on a Parapet*, 1470 by Giovanni Bellini (left) & *Virgin and Child on a Parapet,* 1447 by Francesco Francia (right)

“Isabella Stewart Gardner constructed her art museum to center horticulture as a ‘living art,’ placing the blooming Courtyard at the heart of her galleries and cultivating numerous species of plants to establish a living collection that still exists today,” according to the Gardner’s website.

Gardner Museum Boston, Spanish Dancer by Sargent — *El Jaleo*, 1882 (above) by John Singer Sargent, inside the Gardner Museum. BELOW: The Abbey Room at The Boston Public Library, Copley Square

Boston Public Library

The Public Library opened in 1854, and the Central Library’s McKim Building (an architectural masterpiece in Copley Square opposite Trinity Church) was completed in 1895. Art lovers are drawn to this Back Bay neighborhood to see murals created by the American Edwin Austin Abbey and the Frenchman Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. John Singer Sargent, born in Italy to an American family, felt close ties to Boston and spent 29 years painting mural panels that adorn the Sargent Gallery inside the Boston Public Library. While Sargent considered this commission an opportunity to create a masterwork, the final central panel along the East Wall (intended to illustrate the Sermon on the Mount) was never completed and remains blank to this day.

A lion adorns the Grand Staircase of the McKim Building’s Hall leading to the only murals outside of France created by Puvis de Chavannes

*Triumph of Religion*, a mural in the Gallery named for the painter John Singer Sargent

Sargent’s *Frieze of Prophets* on the East Wall of the Sargent Gallery, Boston Public Library

Cambridge Lies Across the Charles River from Boston

The Harvard Art Museums Are Now Free for All Visitors

Calderwood Courtyard at the historic Fogg Museum, Cambridge (above left) & Memorial Church of Harvard University. *Grazing Horses IV*, 1911 (below) by Franz Marc

Harvard Art Museums

*Odalisque, Slave, and Eunuch*, 1840 by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

*Portrait of an Old Man*, 1632 by Rembrandt van Rijn & *The Apparition*, 1876-77 by Gustave Moreau

The Fogg Art Museum, opened in 1896, is the oldest component of the Harvard Art Museums (part of Harvard University) which includes two additional museums and four research centers. The three museums were integrated into a single institution in the 1980s — with an amazingly strong collection of Italian Renaissance, Pre-Raphaelite, 19th-century French and 20th-century Austrian/German Expressionist paintings — and, fortunately, united in the renovated building at 32 Quincy Street (opened in 2014) to allow greater access to the 250,000-piece collection, which also includes Chinese jades and bronzes, and works of art in all media from the ancient Mediterranean world.

*Spirit of the Waters*, 1914 by Daniel Chester French

*Rocky Mountains, “Lander’s Peak”* 1863 by Albert Bierstadt

*Mirza Abu’l Hassan Khan*, 1810 by Thomas Lawrence & *Fright*, circa 1800 by Jean-Baptiste Greuze

*Abigael Bromfield Rogers*, 1784 by John Singleton Copley & *Pompadour at Her Toilette*, 1750 by François Boucher

*Spring Bouquet*, 1866 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

*Victor Chocquet*, 1875 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir & *Woman on a Striped Sofa with a Dog*, 1876 by Mary Cassatt

*The Gare Saint-Lazare: Arrival of a Train*, 1877 by Claude Monet

*Jacob and the Angel*, 1874 by Gustave Moreau, *The Call to Arms*, 1879 {bronze} by Auguste Rodin & *The Dawn*, 1899 by John La Farge

*Mother and Child*, 1901 by Pablo Picasso

*Woman with a Chignon*, 1901 by Pablo Picasso

*Young Girl Wearing a Large Hat*, 1901 by Pablo Picasso & *Skating*, 1877 by Édouard Manet

*Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin*, 1888 by Vincent van Gogh

*Geraniums*, 1910 by Henri Matisse & *Seated Bather*, 1883-84 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

*Young Woman with Brown Hair*, circa 1768 by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

*Portrait of the Sculptor Nikolaus Friedrich*, 1904 by Lovis Corinth

*Miss Alice Kurtz*, 1903 by Thomas Eakins & *Self-Portrait in Tuxedo*, 1927 by Max Beckmann

*Lake O’Hara*, 1916 by John Singer Sargent

BELOW LEFT: Artur Niezgoda and Channing Page

*Apotheosis of Louis-Adolphe Thiers*, 1878 (above right) by Jehan Georges Vibert

Dedication

We wish to thank Channing Page for her assistance and all-important advice with regard to our selection of venues for art lovers in Cambridge and Boston. In addition to being a true friend and source of inspiration, Channing possesses a thirst for knowledge combined with an appreciation for all of the arts as an amelioration of the human condition, a source of healing and joy. Channing cherishes her family and friends, and is a devoted daughter.

*Morning Fog*, circa 1854 by Jasper Francis Cropsey

*St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata*, circa 1325 (center) by Taddeo Gaddi

*Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen*, 1880 by Edgar Degas

*Little Blue Under Red*, 1950 (above) by Alexander Calder & *Mural, March 20, 1961*, 1961 (top) by Joan Miró

*To the Convalescent Woman*, 1912-13 by Erich Heckel at the Harvard Art Museums

Exterior of Museum of Fine Arts in Boston

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Founded in the capital of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts (abbreviated as the “MFA Boston”) is the 20th-largest art museum in the world (measured by public gallery area). More than 8,000 paintings are on display in the MFA Boston, which possesses one of the most encyclopedic collections in the United States consisting of 450,000 works of art.

The “Portrait of Roswell Gleason” 1848 (above) by Edward Dalton Marchant is displayed in the museum’s rooms from the Roswell Gleason House — built circa 1840 in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The formal Dining Room (in the background) and a sitting room were purchased by the MFA Boston in 1976 from a descendant of Gleason, a prosperous pewter manufacturer. The acquisition of these two rooms represents a most auspicious use of the museum’s Period Room Restoration Fund — the Roswell Gleason House burned in 1982.

*Branch Of Apple Blossoms Against A Cloudy Sky*, 1867 by Martin Johnson Heade

The Exhibition “Fashioned by Sargent” Closed on January 15, 2024

MFA Boston Woman with daughter — *Mrs. Fiske Warren* *and Her Daughter Rachel,* 1903 by John Singer Sargent

*Édouard Pailleron*, 1879 & *Miss Jane Evans*, 1898 by John Singer Sargent

Organized with Tate Britain, the special exhibition entitled “Fashioned by Sargent” explored the painter’s complex relationships with his clients who commissioned portraits. John Singer Sargent often chose what his sitters wore, and he altered details of attire to express the social position, gender identity and distinctive personalities of the men and women he painted. Dozens of period garments, alongside 50 paintings by Sargent, were on display at the MFA Boston through January 15, 2024.

*Edith, Lady Playfair*, 1884 & *Mrs. Charles E. Inches*, 1887 by John Singer Sargent

*Helen Sears*, 1895 by John Singer Sargent

*Cashmere*, circa 1908 {the original, plus two details} by John Singer Sargent

*Miss Elsie Palmer*, 1889-90 & *Mrs. Leopold Hirsch*, 1902 by John Singer Sargent

Art of the Americas Wing

Painting of girl looking into Pot, MFA Boston — *Isabella and the Pot of Basil,* 1897 by John White Alexander (left) & *Study for Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose,* 1885 by John Singer Sargent (right)

Painting of a girl looking at the lantern, MFA Boston — *Isabella and the Pot of Basil,* 1897 by John White Alexander (left) & *Study for Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose,* 1885 by John Singer Sargent (right)

Artist in his Studio, painting by Sargent, MFA Boston — *An Artist in His Studio,* 1904, John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Ambrogio Raffele, was the first oil by Sargent acquired by a U.S. museum.

“An Artist in His Studio” (above) is a reprise of the picture-within-the-picture theme Sargent introduced in 1885 when he created “Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood.” The subject of the artist at work appealed to Sargent, though he typically depicted his colleagues painting outdoors. This painting is exceptional, completed at a time when Sargent was showing a renewed interest in interior scenes. According to the MFA Boston, “Like other such images, Sargent crafted ‘An Artist in His Studio’ with large, vibrant brushstrokes, impasto, and brilliant light. The bravura brushwork belies the painting’s careful creation: Sargent worked tirelessly to compose and build his paintings, adding flashing strokes only at the very end of the process to give the impression of effortlessness and spontaneity.”

MFA Boston — *The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit*, 1882 by John Singer Sargent

Martin Johnson Heade

Magnolia Grandiflora MFA Boston — *Magnolia Grandiflora*, 1885 by Martin Johnson Heade

A Modern Magdalen MFA BOston — *A Modern Magdalen*, 1888 by William Merritt Chase

Painting of two ships in the sunset scene, MFA Boston — *Gloucester Mackerel Fleet at Sunset,* 1884 by Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer

Two Women on a shore, Boston — *Long Branch, New Jersey,* 1869 by Winslow Homer

*Starting Out After Rail,* 1874 (above) by Thomas Eakins

Two Seascapes, 1848-55 (above) by Fitz Henry Lane

MFA Boston, Mountain, snow, blue light — *Cayambe*, 1858 by Frederic Edwin Church

Seascapes of Battles during the War of 1812 (above), painted in 1813 by Thomas Birch

*Still Life with Azaleas and Apple Blossoms*, 1878 by Charles Caryl Coleman (left) and a *Dragonfly* table lamp (above right) from 1905 by Clara Driscoll, chief glass designer at Tiffany Studios

*Sunset on Long Beach,* 1867 by Martin Johnson Heade

Colonial America & the War for Independence

History buffs will find the finest collection of Colonial-era furniture and paintings at the MFA Boston. One of the turning points during the American Revolutionary War (1775 — 1783) came on the morning of December 26, 1776 after General George Washington led his troops across the frozen Delaware River at night to surprise the enemy’s forces at Trenton, as depicted by Thomas Sully in 1819 in “The Passage of the Delaware” (below). You will notice that Sully calls attention to people of color who participated in the American Revolution by including William Lee, an enslaved man, on horseback at right.

*The Passage of the Delaware*, 1819 by Thomas Sully

John Quincy Adams, MFA Boston — *John Quincy Adams*, 1796 by John Singleton Copley

Copley’s portraits from the 1770s include *Gilbert DeBlois* (above left) and *Mrs. William Coffin* (right)

John Singleton Copley

More than 60 paintings by Copley (1738 — 1815) are normally on view at the MFA Boston, including the portrait of “Mrs. Richard Skinner” (below) from 1772.

*Vase of Flowers,* 1864 by John La Farge

Jewelry cabinet, MFA Boston — Jewelry cabinet by Herter Brothers from 1870-90, New York

Girl in Pink Dress looking left, MFA Boston — *Eleanor*, 1907 by Frank Weston Benson

Meadow Lands, MFA Boston — *Meadow Lands,* 1890 by Dennis Miller Bunker

*The Yellow Room,* 1910 by Fredrick Carl Frieseke

William Merritt Chase

Ellen Mary in a White Coat, MFA BOSTON — *Ellen Mary in a White Coat*, 1896 by Mary Stevenson Cassatt

Mary Stevenson Cassatt

Caresse Maternelle MFA Boston — *Caresse Maternelle*, 1902 by Mary Stevenson Cassatt

Childe Hassam

Dusk Snow Painting at MFA Boston — *At Dusk,* 1885-86 by Childe Hassam

Springtime in France in MFA Boston — *Springtime in France,* 1890 by Robert Vonnoh

James McNeill Whistler

*Little Rose of Lyme Regis,* 1895 (left) & *Harmony in Flesh Color and Red,* 1869 by J. McNeill Whistler

Philip Leslie Hale was among the first American artists to travel to Giverny, France, to work alongside Claude Monet. Beginning in 1888, Hale spent several summers in Giverny. He advised Monet to visit the USA to “try his hand” at painting the rapids at Niagara Falls.

BELOW: Valley of the Creuse (Gray Day), 1889 by Claude Monet