An Early Venetian Well-Head in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 1
2 The wel l-head in the garden at Fenway Court, ca . 1902.
3 The well-head in the shop of the antique dealer Rietti in the Palazzo Giustiniani, Venice, 1889.
Among the many Venetian wo rks of art in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is a well-head that deserves more attention than it has hitherto received; 2 it is situated in the Monks Garden, just below the steps leading into the Chinese Loggia (fig. 1). Mrs. Gardner acqu ired it, together with other antiqu ities, during one of her last visits to Venice. The invoice, drawn up by th e renowned Venetian antique dea ler Moise dalla Torre & Co., bea rs th e date 23 August 1899. 3 The price of the well-head was 750 lire; it is described as a "pozzo bizantino antico (riparato)," that is, as an "o ld Byzantine well-head, repaired ." As Mrs. Gardner's biographer, Morris Carter, reported, "The business of these two months was the purchase of columns, capitals, ironwork and furniture" 4 in order to complete her museum at Fenway Court. From her biographer we also learn th at she collected works of art in a conscious attempt to design her house like a Venetian palazzo. So it is no surprise that she also included severa l wellheads in her collection .5 Early photographs (ca. 1902) indicate that she placed this one in its present location soon after the Museum was fini shed (fig. 2 ). The well-head was first mentioned by Ferdinando Ongania in his famous book Raccolta delle vere da pozzo, which appeared in 1889 (fig. 3).6 Ongania states that it originally came from the house of the Pegroni fam ily in Mira, a village near Venice. From Ongania we also learn that in 1889 the well-h ead was owned by the well-respected Venetian antique dealer Rietti. Ongania saw the original and got his information from Rietti so there is no doubt about the provenance of the M useum 's well-head. Later Rietti's firm was bought up by Moise dalla Torre from whom Mrs. Gardner acquired it in 1899. In the fo llowing decades the traces of the well-head were lost; Gino Voltolina illus-
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