Damage to The Ringling Museum of Art and its different campuses after back-to-back hurricanes last fall forced a pivot on the institution. As the property dealt with reparations, Katie Nickel, head of The Ringling’s educational programs, and her staff used the downtime to curate a new tour. “The new format offers the most holistic and comprehensive review of John and Mable Ringling’s life here in Sarasota,” says Nickel. “Visitors will learn more about the origins of circus history, Florida gardening, Florida architecture, baroque art, and much more—100-plus years is a lot to cover.” Indeed, it is. Here’s a primer on what attendees can expect.
Historic Circus Galleries
The new tour begins with a look at how John Ringling became one of the names behind the Greatest Show on Earth. The Ringling’s Historic Circus Galleries date back to 1948 and include all sorts of paraphernalia dealing with circus culture. It is here that visitors will encounter Wisconsin, the Ringlings’ private rail car, a 65-ton moving home that was as luxurious as any other accommodation in the Ringlings’ rarified world. The wooden rail car, outlawed by the city of New York because of the fire hazard these types of rail cars posed when entering the city’s tunnels, once featured its own set of monogrammed tables and glassware. In its heyday, Wisconsin took the couple on their vacations to Utah and Yellowstone National Park.
Bayfront Galleries
Stop two on the tour is The Ringling’s Bayfront Gardens, some 66 acres of diverse plants and trees that speak to the institution’s commitment to horticulture. The property’s alfresco highlights include the Secret Garden, a spot where Mable cultivated colorful bromeliads, succulents, and other Florida-friendly varietals; and the Dwarf Garden, an area with a selection of stone statues representing various characters from Italy’s commedia dell’arte. The property’s Rose Garden is closed for renovations, but will be part of the tour once reopen. For those interested, the various gardens’ trees include 14 banyans, one shaving brush, one tiger’s claw, one bunya pine, one rainbow eucalyptus, and six varieties of bamboo.
Ca’ d’Zan
In 1924, the Ringlings commissioned American architect Dwight James Baum to design them a winter residence inspired by Venice, the couple’s favorite city. Baum delivered with a 36,000-square-foot Mediterranean Revival estate that combines various design influences. Although the tour doesn’t go inside the mansion, a return visit will acquaint interested parties with the structure’s interior design, closely overseen by Mrs. Ringling, and which, like its architecture, is a pastiche of different styles. Since it was finished in 1926, Ca’ d’Zan has been on a constant state of renovation. The most recent restoration efforts focused on the building’s western façade to reduce the intrusion of water due to poorly sealed doors and windows, the exterior’s most defining feature.
Museum of Art
“John H. Phillips was the architect who designed the Museum of Art, the last stop in the tour, in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo,” says Nickel. “Like architect Dwight James Baum did with Ca’ d’Zan, Phillips incorporated a blend of European styles that pay attention to comfort, detail, opulence and wonder.” The tour explores the Museum of Art’s courtyard and its Triumph of the Eucharist series, a monumental collection of tapestries by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens that date back to the 1620s. After that, guests can walk the 95-year-old museum on their own and encounter hundreds of French and Italian masterworks from the seventeenth century, as well as a bronze replica of Michelangelo’s David on the bridge that connects the museum’s two wings.
Story Credits:
Text by Luis R. Rigual
Photos courtesy of The Ringling Museum of Art
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