Letters to Isabella Stewart Gardner

Surrounded by artists, writers and musicians who constituted her court in Boston as in Venice, Isabella Stewart Gardner, a passionate art collector with enormous funds, was as revered and sought after as royalty. Henry James had a real affection for her, and was inspired by the rich and powerful Mrs Gardner and her magnificent pearls, as well as by the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice, for his novel The Wings of the Dove made into a film in 1997. Mrs Gardner was to recreate a larger than life version of Palazzo Barbaro in Boston, which is now the Isabella Gardner Museum. These letters add another dimension to what we know of Henry James long relationship with Venice and the Palazzo Barbaro.

Henry James was born on April 15, 1843 in New York City into a wealthy family. In his youth James travelled back and forth between Europe and America. He studied with tutors in Geneva, London, Paris , Bologna and Bonn. At the age of nineteen he briefly attended Harvard Law School, but preferred reading literature to studying law. After living in Paris, where he was contributor to The New York Tribune, James moved to England, living first in London and then in Rye, Sussex. He died in Rye on February 28, 1916.