Over a period of fifty years, Asia was a touchstone for Isabella Gardner as she traveled, collected art, and formed her museum. She and her husband Jack traveled through the East in 1883–84. She later became a close friend of Okakura Kakuzo, author of The Book of Tea and an authority on Asia art. The Gardner Museum houses important examples of Asian art. Throughout these encounters with Asian culture, Isabella was drawn particularly to the region’s many religions.

The exhibition is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Additional funding has been generously provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. The Leon Levy Foundation and the Institute of Museum & Library Services have furnished additional support.

Journeys East
Isabella Stewart Gardner and Asia

By Alan Chong and Noriko Murai

This fully illustrated book explores the themes of the exhibition, and publishes hundreds of images from Isabella Gardner’s travel albums along with her letters and diary from the trip.

Isabella and Jack Gardner spent more than a year touring Japan, China, Cambodia, Java, and India. Their interest in Asia had been spurred by friends in Boston, most notably, the novelist Marion Crawford and the biologist Edward Morse.

Journals, letters, and photograph albums from the Asian journey provide a new and intimate look into Isabella Gardner’s personality as she was educating herself about art and culture. She was fascinated by the daily lives of people, picturesque ceremonies, and religious events.

Isabella Gardner was not yet a serious art collector, but she spent time with Ernest Fenollosa and Sturgis Bigelow, who were just beginning to collect Japanese art. She bought a pair of Japanese screens and acquired several small Buddhist sculptures, along with a considerable amount of jewelry and small precious objects. Many of these items are displayed in the gallery, along with the six travel albums she made on the trip.

Isabella Gardner filled six albums with photographs, souvenirs, ephemera, and pressed flowers during her trip to Asia. All the major cities had commercial photography studios that sold images of tourist attractions as well as pictures of local people and common activities of the country. Isabella spent long hours during the trip cutting and arranging the photographs and writing captions. She carefully preserved the albums in her museum. She proudly showed them to friends, and may have consulted them when installing Asian objects in the museum.

Gardner began making travel albums in 1867 and completed 28 volumes that recorded her various trips.

Top: Portraits of Okakura

Bottom: Isabella Gardner and Okakura Kakuzo
with friends, 1910

Of Okakura Kakuzo’s many gifts to Isabella Gardner, perhaps the most impressive was a tea set he sent her from Japan in 1905. Earlier that year, he had conducted the tea ceremony (chanoyu) one evening at the Gardner Museum. At this time, Okakura was writing The Book of Tea, an immensely popular book still in print, which would use the tea ceremony as an introduction to Japanese culture. Gardner had already participated in a tea ceremony in Tokyo in 1883.

Okakura’s set came from many different sources. After his death, Isabella Gardner displayed the set on a table in the Chinese Room.

In 1914, Isabella Gardner rebuilt an entire wing of the museum to accommodate her growing collection. In the rear corner of the building, she fashioned a dark, mysterious space called the Chinese Room. Large bronze Buddhist sculptures from China (bought in 1902) dominated the room, which was lined with temple panels and hangings and Japanese screens.

Gardner took friends to visit the room, often at night, but it was never intended for public display. Boston mayor James Curley reported that Mrs. Gardner “communed” with her Buddhas in the room. Although Gardner never converted to Buddhism, she was certainly greatly interested in Asian spirituality.

In 1971, Chinese Room was dismantled and most of its contents sold. Some of its objects are displayed in the exhibition.