A visit to the palace

I haven’t been to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston for ages and ages.  We went to see the exhibition of the six Titian paintings he did for King Phillip of Spain, together again for the first time in 500 years.  Stunning is the only word for it but what was amazing to me is seeing the Titian painting, The Rape of Europa, which the Gardner owns, completely cleaned.  It took my breath away after remembering it as a dark, somewhat murky work with its hundreds of years of a accumulated dirt.  The Gardner was one of my favorite haunts when I was studying at Harvard.

I have added extras of the famous courtyard and other paintings in the museum as well as a closeup of Queen Mary’s gown.  She was Phillip’s wife.  The portrait of Isabella is by John Singer Sargent.