Dutch Room, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (photo)

In 1896 Isabella Stewart Gardner purchased Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait, Age 23, the painting that solidified her decision to transform her private collection into a public museum. Here, Isabella assembled a magnificent tribute to northern Europe’s greatest portraitists including Peter Paul Rubens, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Holbein. The Dutch Room played a key role in Gardner’s entertaining; she occasionally hosted dinners, including one for the Harvard football team following their victory over Yale in 1909. This room was also the scene of tragedy when, in 1990, 13 works were stolen from the Gardner Museum, six of them from the Dutch Room. These works included a Rembrandt self-portrait; one of his finest narrative paintings, A Lady and Gentleman in Black; and his only seascape, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee; as well as Johannes Vermeer’s The Concert.