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 o