Chasing Beauty
The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner
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Narrated by:
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Maggi-Meg Reed
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By:
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Natalie Dykstra
About this listen
The vivid and masterful story of Isabella Stewart Gardner—creator of one of America’s most stunning museums—an American original whose own life was remade by art.
Isabella Stewart Gardner’s museum, with its plain exterior enfolding an astonishing four-story Italian palazzo, rose from Boston’s Fens at the turn of the twentieth century. Its treasures encompassed not only masterwork paintings but tapestries, rare books, prints, porcelains, and fine furniture.
An extraordinary achievement of storytelling and scholarship, Chasing Beauty illuminates the fascinating ways the museum and its holdings can be seen as a kind of memoir, dazzling and haunting, created with objects instead of words and displayed per Isabella’s wishes in the exact placements she initially curated.
Born in 1840 to a privileged New York family, Isabella Stewart married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner as she turned twenty. She was misunderstood by Boston’s insular society and suffered the death of her only child, a beloved boy, not yet two years old.
But in time came friendships, glittering and bohemian; awe-inspiring world travels; and collecting beautiful things with a keen eye and competitive pace—all these were balm for loss. Henry James and John Singer Sargent—whose portrait of Isabella was a masterpiece and a scandal—came to recognize her originality. Bernard Berenson, leading connoisseur of the Italian Renaissance, was her art dealer.
From award-winning author Natalie Dykstra, Chasing Beauty is the story of the complex and singular woman behind one of the most fascinating museums in the nation and the world—a tale of beauty and loss, grit and American self-invention.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2024 Natalie Dykstra and Zoe Pagnamenta (P)2024 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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I have discovered a group of women who refuse to be exploited, are immune to manipulation, and who never settle in the name of love. These ladies know what they want and take what they want by beating men at their own game. Utilizing the secrets exposed in this book, these women gain power, money, and status. Men call them gold diggers, women call them hos, but they call themselves winners. This is the book that society doesn't want you to listen to….
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I spent $24,000 in 4 months
- By B.M. on 10-06-18
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- As Told to Alex Haley
- By: Malcolm X, Alex Haley
- Narrated by: Laurence Fishburne
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
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Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
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it's Nearly perfect
- By Kerry on 09-16-20
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I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t)
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- By: Brené Brown
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Based on seven years of ground-breaking research and hundreds of interviews, I Thought It Was Just Me shines a long-overdue light on an important truth: Our imperfections are what connect us to each other and to our humanity. Our vulnerabilities are not weaknesses; they are powerful reminders to keep our hearts and minds open to the reality that we're all in this together.
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I'm sure its great if you are a mother ....
- By Leslie A Hill on 08-09-11
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Mythology: Mega Collection
- Classic Stories from the Greek, Celtic, Norse, Japanese, Hindu, Chinese, Mesopotamian and Egyptian Mythology
- By: Scott Lewis
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Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....
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An interesting set of introductions.
- By Kevin Potter on 05-30-19
By: Scott Lewis
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The Philosopher's Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room
- By: Patrick Grim, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Patrick Grim
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
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Taught by award-winning Professor Patrick Grim of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, The Philosopher’s Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room arms you against the perils of bad thinking and supplies you with an arsenal of strategies to help you be more creative, logical, inventive, realistic, and rational in all aspects of your daily life.
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This should NOT be an audio book
- By Brooks Emerson on 03-21-20
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My Big TOE: Awakening
- Book One of a Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics
- By: Thomas Campbell
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My Big TOE: Awakening, written by a nuclear physicist in the language of contemporary culture, unifies science and philosophy, physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, purpose and meaning, the normal and the paranormal. The entirety of human experience (mind, body, and spirit) including both our objective and subjective worlds is brought together under one seamless scientific understanding.
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What a Trip (but to where?)
- By Michael on 11-26-13
By: Thomas Campbell
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The wonderful historical perspective.
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For just over a decade, from 1956 to 1967, a collection of dilapidated former sail-making warehouses clustered at the lower tip of Manhattan became the quiet epicenter of the art world.
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The narrator mis-pronounces everones name
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In Montmartre
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A lively and deeply researched group biography of the figures who transformed the world of art in bohemian Paris in the first decade of the 20th century. In Montmartre is a colorful history of the birth of Modernist art as it arose from one of the most astonishing collections of artistic talent ever assembled. It begins in October 1900, as a teenage Pablo Picasso, eager for fame and fortune, first makes his way up the hillside of Paris’s famous windmill-topped district.
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Florid narrative history with suspect details
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What listeners say about Chasing Beauty
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anka Z
- 10-15-24
Mrs Jack , America's greatest art collector .
dull reading of fascinating story of gilded age excess, social whirl of artists and artworld
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- Kathleen Mccord
- 06-13-24
A Very Strong Woman
This book is filled with information: names, dates, travel itineraries and gossip. It gets a bit chatty and there is MUCH name-dropping, which does get tiresome, as it is not relevant. What IS interesting is her drive to collect beautiful art and display it as it has never been displayed before. The tragedies she suffered would have destroyed anyone else but she just kept going, and going, and going. I will visit the museum again with a whole new appreciation for it and the art Isabella so generously offered to her public to see. One simply has to be grateful that she was already deceased when her beloved museum was robbed.
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1 person found this helpful
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- addictedknitter
- 04-02-24
The details of the portraits
I enjoyed the entire book the reader did an excellent job describing the paintings and other objects in the museum
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1 person found this helpful
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- Joan
- 06-28-24
Sensory delight for fine art lovers
Sumptuous book outlining the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner that inspired me to enjoy the beauty of the everyday, people, art and experiences.
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- John
- 05-11-24
A chronology
I liked this book very much. It is a long timeline well told. Essentially an exhaustive list of who’s who, where they are, and what they did, principally Mrs Jack, as she was called. It is completely factual, with pages of references and citations in the back. Skillfully recounted by the narrator.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-24-24
Great story about Isabella Stewart Gardner the art collector and human
As an undergraduate student in the Boston area, I would often visit her museum in the Harvard campus. Top notch and Beautiful collection that she left for various generations. This book is engaging and provides great background on how she built her legacy.
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- Jeff
- 04-01-24
A brilliant life brilliently presented
What an epic life Isabella Stuart Gardner lived! Many lives. Natalie Dykstra paints a masterful portrait of a throughly modern and relatable individual. An ambitious, independent, energetic, accomplished, connected, and successful woman in a time, like ours, when these qualities could make a woman suspect. Yes, she was born into wealth, but what she chose to do with that wealth, how she lived, and who she associated with, was extraordinary in her time and a model for ours. Like Isabella Stuart Gardner’s legacy museum, this ambitious work is brilliantly curated and a flowing effortless pleasure to experience.
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- Matt
- 04-09-24
The Penultimate ISG Biography
If you enjoy biography, this book knocks it out of the park. Dykstra brings to us a beautifully written book about the captivating woman, who was, Isabella Stewart Gardner.
It is extremely well researched and accomplishes the difficult task of emoting the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of its subject. It is so much more than facts and figures.
The narrator was fantastic, too…perfectly suited for this book. Highly recommend.
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- Diane M. Gilbert
- 08-07-24
History of Bella’s life and the gilded age in captivating detail.
I thoroughly enjoyed “Chasing Beauty.” A good follow-up to the JSSargent biographies I’ve been reading. They were contemporaries as were Henry James, Whistler, Henry Adams, and Bernard Berenson and so many others. Bella was one of a kind who seldom comes around during the centuries. Loved the travelogues and cultural depictions and of course the art descriptions.
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- Anonymous User
- 04-21-24
Her life
Interesting life she led for sure told in a different way than usual biography very well done
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