Object details
Object number
ARC.007503
Creator(s)
Title
Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz
Date
about 1880
Medium
Albumen print on card
Language
English
Dimensions
16.8 x 11 cm (6 5/8 x 4 5/16 in.)
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Embossed (on recto, lower right inside image): Watkins.
Printed in ink (on recto, below image frame): Photographed from C.E. Watkins' Yosemite Art Gallery, 22 & 26 Montg'y St. op. Lick House Entrance.
Inscribed in pencil (on verso, upper left): Mrs. Louis Agassiz
Provenance
Gift from Radcliffe College President Elizabeth Cary Cabot Agassiz to Isabella Stewart Gardner, 9 December, year unknown.
Enclosed in the book Louis Agassiz by Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz, 1885. (v.2.a.5.11)
Commentary
Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz was a scholar and pioneer of women’s education in the United States and a friend of Isabella Stewart Gardner's. Agassiz was essential in transforming women’s education at Harvard University, which started with professors providing private instruction for ladies through what was called the “Harvard Annex.” It was likely through the Annex that Isabella could take classes with Charles Eliot Norton. Through her fundraising efforts and advocacy, Agassiz contributed to transforming this informal continuing education program into a formal and permanent college. As her letters to Gardner indicate, Isabella was one of the people whom she recruited to give to the cause: “I am truly obliged for your…generosity to the Annex."
Bibliography
Diana Seave Greenwald, "Back to School with Isabella at Radcliffe College," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 28 September 2021, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/back-school-isabella-radcliffe-college
Gallery
Vatichino
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