Dennis Miller Bunker (Garden City, New York, 1861 - 1890, Boston)
Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1889
Oil on canvas, 59.7 x 48.9 cm (23 1/2 x 19 1/4 in.)
This oil painting is a full-length portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner. She sits on a dark brown wooden armchair and looks directly at the viewer in front of a dark green wall and beige floor that are rendered in broad, loose brushstrokes. Her luminous coral floor-length dress with cap sleeves plunges at the neck line, fits her upper body closely, becoming much fuller from the waist down with a long train swept to our left and falling to the floor in stiff folds, spreading out over the bottom right of the painting. Delicate, transparent grayish-white fabric covers her arms and edges the neck and front of her dress from the neckline to the floor where one pink toe of a shoe can be glimpsed. A string of pearls is looped once closely to her neck, then falls to her waist in a long narrow oval-shape. She rests her left hand on the arm of her chair, and loosely holds a beige, flag-like fan on a short stick, her other hand lying fisted in her lap. Her reddish-brown hair outlines her face and is pulled back tightly behind her ears and head. Her blue eyes look unflinchingly at the viewer and her coral-colored lips are closed in a neutral manner giving a pleasant continence to her expression.
Vatichino
Commentary
Dennis Miller Bunker painted Isabella in a gown she wore to the Artists' Festival, a costume ball benefiting the Boston Art Students' Association in April of 1889. Isabella sat on the organizing committee for the evening and the Boston Globe reported that all of the patronesses of the event wore Venetian costumes from the time of Paolo Veronese. Bunker also attended the event dressed as a troubadour carrying a lute. A year later Bunker recalled Isabella in her regal attire, writing to her "I often think of you in Venetian state... do you wear your red and gold dress I wonder—or do your hair à la Tintoretto?" Isabella collected 6 other paintings and drawings by Bunker before he died tragically early at the age of 29.