Two recent visits into Boston
The Boston Public Library & the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Last month my wife & I had some time to kill in Boston - so we spent a couple of hours touring through the main building of the Boston Public Library. Many years ago I had a BPL card, used mostly at a branch location to request research materials to be sent to me. This visit to the main library wasn’t to use its resources, but to view the building and its artwork/collection. It’s quite an impressive building, filled with great details -a real gem in the heart of the city. This building opened in 1895 - I got lousy photos, so went online to get a record of the inscriptions on the building:
... on each of the main building's three façades. On the south is inscribed: "MDCCCLII • FOUNDED THROUGH THE MUNIFICENCE AND PUBLIC SPIRIT OF CITIZENS"; on the east: "THE PUBLIC LIBRARY OF THE CITY OF BOSTON • BUILT BY THE PEOPLE AND DEDICATED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING • A.D. MDCCCLXXXVIII"; and on the north: "THE COMMONWEALTH REQUIRES THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE AS THE SAFEGUARD OF ORDER AND LIBERTY".
Above the central entrance: FREE TO ALL.
I couldn’t even get through the doorway without stopping - [sorry for the poor photo, next time I’ll bring a camera]
under that egg-and-dart carving is a version of arcading/column carvings that I’ve seen in oak furniture many times. A nice combination of convex and concave shapes under very precise arches. The whole place is awash in details. These famous lions flanking the main stairway. Astounding.
The BPL website shows the “points of interest” - but really the whole thing is that. The yellow marble entryway & staircase are like nothing I’ve ever seen. A set of murals surround this staircase and hallway above. Then there’s two other awe-inspiring stops - the Bates Hall - runs the full width/length of the building.
A reading room with a 50-foot ceiling. The place was packed when we were there, but you could hear a pin drop. That in itself was significant. The ceiling is another decorative spectacle.
A detail of the ceiling - and look, just for Megan - I shot the bit over Bill’s name…
And then beyond that staircase/hallway is the Abbey Room, named for the artist Edwin Austin Abbey who painted the 15 murals depicting Sir Galahad’s Quest for the Holy Grail. I looked at the paintings, but spent more time studying the oak paneling and the fireplace/hearth. More carving...and the ceiling was another mind-blowing thing. It was a great visit - and free.
Then today we went back to the city to see the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. We were last there maybe 10 years ago. Today’s visit was timed to see the hanging nasturtiums - they happen every year, but we’d never been to see them. Even without them, the courtyard is the prime space in the museum.
It’s an unusual museum, a single collection - no object labels, practically no texts at all. One thing the lack of interpretive texts does is lets you just look -
The Gardner is unfortunately most well-known now for the theft that happened there 30 years ago. Still unsolved. But tucked into the 3rd floor hallway is what I know the Gardner for - this chest. I was there about 1991 to examine it and was glad to see it again today. [their photo]
Has its original lid of American chestnut. Two radial boards, probably riven but planed clean of all marks that would give it away.
So why am I writing about a library and museum visit?
You might guess - libraries and museums are just another target of the great wave of deathly cuts in our country that the present administration is undertaking. I’ve been studying 17th-century New England joinery since 1989. I couldn’t possibly have got to where I am in this study without libraries and museums.
I’ve been going to libraries all of my life. Museums since I was in high school. Growing up, we lived within walking distance of the library and went often. I vaguely remember the first library I ever knew in Weymouth, Massachusetts - but I was maybe 7 years old when they tore it down and moved to another (still within walking distance) location. The first place we ever took our own kids that wasn’t a doctor’s appointment was the library. And we still go regularly, nearly 20 years later.
I’ve often written about how Jennie Alexander got me on board to study 17th-century furniture. I have a letter she sent me to answer some questions I had - and in that letter she wrote:
[“Go to the Mus of Fine Arts & look @ chests. & their grain & their pegs. Nothing to it. Get cc of New England Begins, Fairbanks & Trent & The Wrought Covenant, Robt St. George from library.”]
I had been a member of the MFA when I spent a dismal year in art school around the corner. Skipped class often to roam the collections there. Off and on I was a regular visitor - then when JA turned me onto the furniture collection I was there as much as I could be. What I didn’t know in those first months studying that collection is that I would a few years later begin working in the museum field and eventually visit (& sometimes work with) most major furniture collections in American museums. In the East anyway.
No one goes into museum work to get rich. Most of the people are there out of a love for the subject - whether it’s history, objects, a place/house/person, etc. I assume the same is true for those working in libraries - they’re not there because they’re going to make the big time. A couple of days ago an executive order announced that the entire staff of the Institute of Museum & Library Services has been placed on leave.
“While on leave, the staff are prohibited from continuing their duties. All employees were required to turn in government phones and other property before leaving the building, and their email accounts are now disabled. This means that libraries and museums will no longer be able to contact IMLS for updates about the funding they rely on. Work on processing 2025 grants and 2026 applications has ceased entirely, and the status of previously awarded grants is now unclear.
Without staff to administer these programs, it is likely that most grants will be terminated.”
[from https://www.everylibrary.org/statement_imls_staff_administrative_leave ]
I am loathe to bring politics into this blog - and I’m not going to harp about it - but I feel that all these cuts being made in rapid-fire succession are devastating to our country. I wrote about this one because it’s personal for me and my family. My wife & I both worked in the museum field for 20 years. It sounds like a cliche or exaggeration, but I literally would not be where I am, both personally & professionally, if it weren’t for museums and libraries. I’m about to go teach a class in making carved boxes. Almost all my reference materials come from museum collections. When I get to see private collections, it’s because of the work I’ve done in the museum field all these years and my contacts there…
At least the 19th century robber barons created libraries and funded museums and other educational institutions. What I’m seeing is some billionaires tearing things down, not building them up…
Back to woodworking next time.
Links to Boston Public Library and Gardner Museum
Thank you for your always fascinating newsletter, and for this special one that calls attention to the museums and libraries that are so important to this kind of work, and more generally to preserving our heritage.
Thanks for speaking up about the current madness in Washington. Being politely silent certainly isn't going to fix things.