Isabella Stewart Gardner: Collector of Art and Men

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Long before the gallery she built was famously robbed, Isabella Stewart Gardner was shocking 19th-century society with her disregard for convention.

“Isabella Gardner appears not to wish me to complete her,” wrote a biographer who chose to tackle her story. “Burning her private papers, exerting control over the future of each piece in her collection, she does not want to be a character in my story.”