Venice and Boston: A 19th Century Love Affair

This blog post is one of a two-part series on collections at the Gibson House Museum from Italy.

When you leave the Music Room at the Gibson House, a small wooden icon frames the doorway above you. Visitors ask about this object regularly: What is it? Who is the saint depicted? Why is it located in such a prominent spot? As one of the only overtly religious items in this Brahmin (and, therefore, staunch Protestant) household, it does catch your eye.

The icon is of St. Mark (San Marco), the patron saint of Venice. On the wall to its right is a copy of Flora, a well-known painting by Venetian Old Master Titian. If Paris is sometimes considered the essential European destination for American travelers today, Venice held the same appeal for late-nineteenth-century American travelers. It wasn’t necessarily a center for contemporary art or fashion; rather, it represented an old Europe that Americans found exotic and romantic. Venice was no longer an international powerhouse, but its Renaissance-era art and architecture reminded travelers of its previous glory (in a distinctly non-threatening way).

Local Boston tastemaker Isabella Stewart Gardner was completely smitten with Venice. She traveled there regularly, and used the architecture of the city as inspiration—and as literal building blocks—for her collections at Fenway Court (now the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum).

Members of the Gibson family likely traveled to Venice, possibly as part of a Grand Tour (of which Venice was an essential stop). During this period there was quite a robust market for large-scale copies of Old Master works, and the Gibsons may have purchased the copy of Flora during their travels. We can liken these kinds of copies to very fancy postcards; they allowed tourists to take a little piece of Italian visual culture home with them. The icon, on the other hand, may have been taken directly from a church in the city. Travelers in this period thought nothing of grabbing a chip off the Parthenon or the Colosseum to take back home, and the regulations surrounding antiquities were not yet developed. Taken together, these objects point to the love affair Bostonians had with Venice in the second half of the nineteenth century.

On Tuesday, May 3, and Saturday, May 7, the Gibson House Museum is offering the specialty tour “The Gibsons in a Global World,” which explores the house and collections with a focus on objects from outside the United States, including Italy. Book your tour today at Boston Design Week.

- Meghan Gelardi Holmes, Curator

To learn more:

• Americans Writing Venice: Edith Wharton and Henry James, Warwick Knowledge Centre (October 2011)
• From Venice to the Fenway: Architectural Elements in the Courtyard, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (April 2021)