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A catchy title, eh? But like Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, I’ve cobbled together disparate elements to make a (hopefully) greater whole. Actually, to be truthful, I’m just plain lazy 😎, but both museums do deal with America during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

There is of course the world famous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston Massachusetts, but there is also The Gardner Museum in Gardner Massachusetts.

Aside, I’ve discovered that WordPress has generative AI capabilities! I just typed in “A kangaroo playing the violin” and got this result:

Holy F*cking Sh*t!!! 😃👍Mikey, I think he likes it!!! 😍

Using this new powerful toy, I had the WordPress AI conjure up an appropriate image showing a possible conjunction of these two museums, a merger of Venice with “Chair City”:

Sweet!

Isabella Stewart Gardner, a wealthy heiress and wife of successful businessman Jack Gardner, was influenced by the Palazzo Barbero in Venice and used this inspiration as the basis of her museum, bringing the warmth of Venice to the sometimes chilly wintery Boston. She had acquired a massive art collection in the course of her travels, consisting of paintings by such masters as Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Raphael, Manet, Titian, Vermeer, Boticelli, Matisse, Degas, Sargent, sculptures, medieval tapestries, silverware, manuscripts, books, and various other treasures.

I love this museum. Particularly in the winter when it is like traveling to a balmy Venice in the summer in the 19th century. The center courtyard is literally the centerpiece of the museum, an inside out Venetian palace with seasonal garden displays, right now displaying the fabulous Holiday Garden featuring red amaryllises, jade trees, green aloe, and dusty silver miller.

They even let you tour the greenhouse that maintains the rotating garden themes.

Isabella’s gift to the world is amazing and I am thankful for the opportunity to have been able to share in her world.

The Gardner Museum is located at 28 Pearl St. in Gardner Massachusetts in the Richardsonian Romanesque building that was the former house of the Levi Heywood Memorial Library. Now it is the home of the museum which, although small, provides a unique view of Gardner’s past, when the city was literally an industrial powerhouse. Starting in the 19th century, Gardner developed a leading furniture industry, specializing in chairs, and even becoming the “Chair City of the World”.

Since I have visited Gardner Massachusetts, I have wondered if Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy based the fictional city of “Blaine” Missouri, “The Stool Capital of America”, on Gardner.

Then I discovered that president Teddy Roosevelt had visited Gardner in 1902 as part of a train “whistlestop tour,” and that clinched it.

In Waiting for Guffman, supposedly president William McKinley had visited Blaine in a whistlestop tour and was given a stool as a gift.

On display at the museum are various chairs that were manufactured in Gardner by the Heywood-Wakefield Company, S. Bent Brothers, Conant Ball, Gem Industries, among others.

Also, I was amazed to learn that Gardner also had a vibrant silversmithing industry, even providing silverware for Queen Elizabeth of England and Princess Grace of Monaco.

Also, the now defunct Florence Stove Company had a factory that manufactured household stoves in a factory in Gardner.

Industrial timeclocks were actually invented in Gardner and led to the formation of the world-famous Simplex Company.

And finally, munitions were manufactured in Gardner during WWII.

All in all a very impressive history lesson in what is one of these relatively small Historical Society museums.