{"product_id":"chasing-beauty-pb","title":"Chasing Beauty Pb","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe vivid and masterful story of\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eIsabella Stewart Gardner—creator of one of America’s most stunning museums—an American original\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003ewhose own life was remade by art. Includes archival photos of Isabella’s world, museum,\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eand the art\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eshe collected.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIsabella Stewart Gardner’s museum, with its plain exterior enfolding an astonishing four-story Italian palazzo, rose from Boston’s Fens at the turn of the twentieth century. Its treasures encompassed not only masterwork paintings but tapestries, rare books, prints, porcelains, and fine furniture.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn extraordinary achievement of storytelling and scholarship, \u003cem\u003eChasing Beauty\u003c\/em\u003e illuminates the fascinating ways the museum and its holdings can be seen as a kind of memoir, dazzling and haunting, created with objects instead of words and displayed per Isabella’s wishes in the exact placements she initially curated.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBorn in 1840 to a privileged New York family, Isabella Stewart married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner as she turned twenty. She was misunderstood by Boston’s insular society and suffered the death of her only child, a beloved boy, not yet two years old.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut in time came friendships, glittering and bohemian; awe-inspiring world travels; and collecting beautiful things with a keen eye and competitive pace—all these were balm for loss. Henry James and John Singer Sargent—whose portrait of Isabella was a masterpiece and a scandal—came to recognize her originality. Bernard Berenson, leading connoisseur of the Italian Renaissance, was her art dealer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom award-winning author Natalie Dykstra, \u003cem\u003eChasing Beauty\u003c\/em\u003e is the story of the complex and singular woman behind one of the most fascinating museums in the nation and the world—a tale of beauty and loss, grit and American self-invention.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MediaPlace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57194999251326,"sku":"NW9780063378353","price":16.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1379\/1261\/files\/9780063378353.jpg?v=1778597300","url":"https:\/\/mediaplace.com\/en-eu\/products\/chasing-beauty-pb","provider":"MediaPlace","version":"1.0","type":"link"}