FALLS CHURCH, VA. – A Nineteenth Century American School portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924), American art collector, philanthropist and patron of the arts, earned more than 25 times its high estimate, bringing $69,850, including buyer’s premium, at Quinn’s Auction Galleries’ January 30 sale. Gardner famously founded the eponymous museum in Boston housed in a building designed to emulate a Fifteenth Century Venetian palace after receiving a large inheritance from her father. Early in the morning of March 18, 1990, thieves disguised as police officers robbed the museum of 13 works worth some $500 million – the greatest known property theft in history, works that to date have never been recovered. The full-length oil on canvas portrait, rendered in shadowy tones, came from the estate of a private collector in Potomac, Md., and measured 47½ by 27½ inches. The sale was a massive success doing more than $1.3 million, premium included, against an estimate of $550/700,000, said Matthew C. Quinn. A full report on this sale follows in a later issue.
