E-Mail This Article to a Friend Boston highlights A few of our favorite things BY RANDI HOPKINS

As the holidays approach, artists and museum and gallery staff turn their attention to home and hearth, and art openings dwindle from our calendars. So what do we do for art during these quiet weeks? I asked Boston’s art insiders to reveal their favorite local artworks, the treasures they visit and revisit and eagerly show to out-of-town guests and relatives. Our informal poll revealed at least one not-very-surprising favorite. Independent curator and writer Trevor Fairbrother speaks for many when he says, "I’d choose an entire museum — Isabella Stewart Gardner’s eclectic weaving of art, furnishings, horticulture, and atmosphere. If the founder hadn’t written such a savvy and restrictive will, generations of caretakers would doubtless have undone the peculiar magic of the whole ensemble. The Gardner is a place I can visit certain of seeing an object previously unnoticed or of feeling something new about an old favorite."

Francine Koslow Miller, art historian and critic, also enjoys the Gardner. "Inside, my favorite is Botticelli’s Madonna of the Eucharist [a/k/a Virgin and Child with an Angel] — pure Neo-Platonic celestial beauty. And on the outside, I love the Joseph Kosuth neon artwork Whistler’s Warning c.c.c.c.c. It was taken from Whistler’s famous 10 o’clock lecture and warns about putting too much importance on what gets into museums." Artist/art critic Charles Giuliano’s favorite at the Gardner: "The Rape (we now say ‘Abduction’) of Europa by Titian is one of the greatest works of the Italian master and all-time greatest painter of human flesh."

Hidden treasures at the Museum of Fine Arts top the charts for many, including artists David Kelley and Kim Pashko, who responded in an e-mail, "Our fave is the Indian corridor gallery at the MFA. It is always changing and always has a surprise or two." For artist and MFA conservator Andrew Haines, "One painting is always on my list of things to take home if the MFA has a yard sale: Owl’s Head, Penobscot Bay, Maine by Fitz Hugh Lane." Artist Hannah Barrett steers her visitors to the MFA’s Copley paintings, "especially Watson and the Shark. American history comes to life, it’s good drama." Barrett has a plan for post-museumgoing, too. One of her favorite works of art is behind the bar at Doyle’s in Jamaica Plain. "Great murals, 1940s version of American history."

Rob Clifford and Jim Smith of Clifford•Smith Gallery are fans of the I.M. Pei–designed Christian Science Center. "Those buildings and fountain, while falling into the category of architecture, are really just a giant public sculpture that happens to be big enough for humans to enter." Raphaela Platow, curator at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis, cites the glass flowers at Harvard’s Museum of Natural History, saying, "This artistic feat has drawn my attention to it many times. Not exactly works of art, still they epitomize an unequaled craftsmanship and educational zeal."

Guests of DeCordova Museum curator Nick Capasso are in for the wildest ride. "When out-of-towners come to Boston, I take them to see the largest but most obscure sculpture in the city: the Madonna Queen Shrine in the Orient Heights neighborhood of East Boston. This Roman Catholic shrine is located near Logan Airport, atop the highest point in East Boston, and features a 35-foot-tall bronze Virgin Mary who faces an open plaza of Astroturf flanked by a colonnade featuring mosaic images of the Stations of the Cross." Can’t beat that for holiday spirit!

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is at 280 the Fenway; call (617) 278-5129. The Museum of Fine Arts is at 465 Huntington Avenue; call (617) 267-9300. Doyle’s is at 3484 Washington Street in Jamaica Plain; call (617) 524-2345. The Christian Science Plaza is at 175 Huntington Avenue; call (617) 450-2000. The Harvard Museum of Natural History is at 26 Oxford Street in Harvard Square; call (617) 495-3045. The Don Orione Madonna Queen National Shrine is at 111 Orient Avenue in East Boston; call (617) 569-2100, or follow the marked exit signs off Route 1A.