PAINTINGS REUNITED AT THE RINGLING MUSEUM

Dr. Virginia Brilliant Associate Curator of European Art

Many of the world’s most iconic paintings were originally conceived in pairs or sets and have been separated since their creation.

The Ringling’s collection contains many such works. Just think of our portraits of Pieter Olycan by Frans Hals and Francesco Franceschini by Paolo Veronese, whose wives live, respectively, in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Pinacoteca di Palazzo Thiene in Vicenza, the gold ground panel paintings in Gallery 4 which are but fragments chopped from larger altarpieces, or even our enormous paintings by Rubens from the Eucharist series, which show only five scenes from a cycle of twenty works. Opportunities to remedy such situations are few and far between, so when one comes along, we have to seize it!

As many members will know, the Ringling owns a series of paintings called the Misadventures of Harlequin, created by the 18th century Florentine master Giovanni Domenico Ferretti (1692–1768). The museum’s first director, A. Everett “Chick” Austin, purchased the works to decorate the lobby of the Asolo Theater that he had acquired for the Museum in 1950. All fifteen paintings came from the collection of the famous German theatre director Max Reinhardt (1873–1943) at Schloss Leopoldskron, near Salzburg. Yet the series had originally been conceived as sixteen canvases. Reinhardt had owned them all, but for some reason, one simply did not come to Florida in the 1950s. This painting, the series’ missing piece, was recently brought to my attention as being on the art market in

Europe. When it was sent out on approval to the Museum, we were thrilled to see that the work was in beautiful condition. The Ringling has purchased the work, and soon it will be brought together with its brothers (now installed in Gallery 16), allowing visitors to appreciate Feretti’s series fully and completely, the way the artist intended.

Ferretti’s set of paintings is rooted in the commedia dell’arte, a theatrical form characterized by improvised dialogue and a cast of colorful stock characters that emerged in northern Italy in the 15th century and rapidly gained popularity throughout Europe. The zanni (servants)