The Lioness of Boston

"A deeply evocative portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner, a daring visionary who created an inimitable legacy in American art and transformed the city of Boston itself. By the time Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her Italian palazzo-style home as a museum in 1903 to showcase her collection of old masters, antiques, and objects d'art, she was already well-known for scandalizing Boston's polite society. But when Isabella first arrives in Boston in 1861, she is twenty years old, newly married to a wealthy trader, and unsure of herself. Puzzled by the frosty reception she receives from stuffy bluebloods, she strives to fit in. After two devastating tragedies and rejection from upper-society, Isabella discovers her spirit and casts off expectations. Freed by travel, Isabella explores the world of art, ideas, and letters, meeting such kindred spirits as Henry James and Oscar Wilde. From London and Paris to Egypt and Asia, she develops a keen eye for paintings and objects, and meets feminists ready to transform nineteenth century thinking in the twentieth century. Isabella becomes an eccentric trailblazer, painted by John Singer Sargent in a portrait of daring dâecolletage, and fond of such stunts as walking a pair of lions in the Boston Public Garden. The Lioness of Boston is a portrait of what society expected a woman's life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and determined to live on her own terms"--