An advance warning -- you won't find famous paintings here. What you will find is a nice, ecclectic collection of art in its original setting. This was the private home of Isabella Stewart Gardner who decreed in her will that the house be open to the public and preserved exactly as is -- nothing can be moved!

It's less impressive than the MFA, but worth the trip. Have lunch at the museum, or stroll around the Fenway before or afterwards.

I've wrestled as to what rating to give this museum. The vast array of art, artifacts, furniture and miscellania assembled by Isabella Stewart Gardner is mind-boggling; the villa in which the collection is housed is stunning; and the manner of display -- as per Ms. Gardner's directives -- is intriguing. But, the strict hyper-vigilance of the museum's policies and its security staff detract from the experience here. I found the lack of adequate seating to be the most irksome, and woe be to the weary person who dares to sit on the floor -- you'll be harshly reprimanded. A sharp contrast to the neighboring Museum of Fine Arts where art students are sprawled around sketching, there are numerous benches, and signs invite you to "please be seated" on additional pieces which are actually part of MFA's collection.

The lack of information at to what's on display is, as others have noted, frustrating. I understand that it would be impossible to identify for viewers all 2,500+ pieces in the collection, but labeling is exceedingly sparce. And even the blue paperback Guide won't appease much of one's curiosity. On a more positive note, the audio tour (at an additional cost of $4) is quite worthwhile. The segments are a good length (neither too brief nor numbingly long) and provide information on museum highlights and Ms. Gardner's life that really enhances your visit. The cafe offers somewhat off-beat fare which is both tasty and nicely-presented, but it is very tiny so I definitely recommend that you go for lunch there as soon as it opens at 11:30 AM, before the line builds up.

I would return to ISGM, but will approach it with scaled-back expectations: it's not a typical museum and is best enjoyed on its own terms... a panoramic look at a forest, so to speak, rather than scrutiny of individual trees.

Note that anyone named Isabella is admitted free of charge, and if you present an admission ticket from the Museum of Fine Arts, you'll receive a $2 discount off the entrance fee at ISGM (and vice versa).

My husband had looked up museums online for us and had found high recommendations for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, so my daughter and I went. What a huge disappointment. My greatest criticism is that between the poor arrangements and the terrible lighting in the dark rooms I could not see many ot the pieces very well. To be fair, it was a rather dark and rainy day, but I would expect a museum to provide sufficient lighting to enable me to view the collection even under those circumstances. They must recognise this because one of the rooms was being rennovated and I think that the sign said that they were redoing the lighting.

I was surprised at the arrangement for the collection of etchings. They were framed and hung on a series of doors. The top door was viewable, but as I opened it and viewed the etchings on the back of the door and those on the succeeding doors (there were 4 or 5 doors stacked in a single frame), the shadows thrown by the upper doors combined with the inability to fully open lower doors because they hit the upper doors (all being hinged on the same frame), made viewing the etchings at the back virtually impossible. Another problem was that many rooms were roped off so that you couldn't see much of their contents either from the doorway or from the side of the room you were standing in. There was a lace collection on the far side of one room, but the details of it were lost to me since I could not get close enough to see much of the patterns.

Very few of the paintings, tapestries, or other objects are labeled with any information about the artist, the time period, the subject of the painting, etc. This is done on purpose since Isabella wanted people to enjoy the art for its own sake (I'm paraphrasing here from the lecture we heard on her). Although it would have been possible for me to get this information from the museum (I'm not sure if I'd have had to pay extra for this), I did not do so. So now, rather than having a way of discussing a particular painting by title, my daughter and I can say things like, do you remember the picture in the room with all the Madonnas, you know the really large one that the curator said was the most expensive one in the collection? Of course, I have no idea who did it (my daughter thinks it was a Titan), so we can't even refer to it by the artist. I totally disagree with Isabella's philosophy on labeling. I find that having information about a piece (which I can choose to read or not), greatly enhances my museum experience and learning.

On the plus side, we really loved the courtyard garden with its beautiful arrangements of flowering plants and sculpture.

The museum itself and the artworks are lovely, but the staff and policies are not. I visited the museum in order to write a paper on some of the work in the medieval room, and spent the entire time trying to get away from the employee monitoring the room. It is understandable that the museum staff is protective of the art, but to continually inform me that I was "disturbing" because I was sitting on the provided bench and viewing a sculpture seemed a bit much. No photos, overly large bags, coats, pens, etc. allowed. If you're wearing a sweater, you may be asked to remove it and take it to the coat check. If you buy something from the museum gift shop, do it just before you leave, as you're not allowed to carry your purchase in the bag provided, but you're not allowed to put your purchase (in the bag) in the coat check (you have to carry it around with you, as I did with an art book).

In short, the museum is beautiful and worth a look, but don't go if you're planning on spending more than two hours in it, because you will invariably be made uncomfortable by the smothering staff members.