NEW WORKS ON VIEW

Visitors to The Ringling in 2018 will have new reasons to delight in the permanent collection galleries of the Museum of Art. While some of the bestknown paintings from the collection are traveling to two university museums in Florida, the Ringling galleries will see the display of nine beautiful and important works, most of which have been in storage for a number of years. One painting—a new acquisition—will be on view for the first time. We are excited to exhibit these works, and encourage visitors to look for them.

Gallery 9 will feature a work recently added to The Ringling’s collection, the Marriage of Jacob and Rachel, painted in the 1670s by the workshop of Pietro da Cortona. Generously donated by Frances D. Fergusson, this painting is a lovely addition to the space, which focuses on smaller-scale pictures created for connoisseurcollectors. Cortona himself devised the composition, creating a scene that is both restrained in action yet alive with energy. Old Testament subjects such as this one were in high demand from elite Roman art collectors of the period.

Gallery 6 will feature a small group of Tuscan paintings of the early 16th century, a time when artists in Florence and Siena had absorbed the lessons of the High Renaissance and were moving in new stylistic directions. This grouping of Central Italian works provides a fascinating counterpoint to 16th-century painting in Venice, which is represented in the rest of the gallery.

In Gallery 8, the monumental Annunciation by Benedetto Gennari II will return to view for the first time in ten years (for more on this painting, see the January – April 2018 Members Magazine). Another exceptional work returning to Gallery 8 is the Abduction of Deianira by the Centaur Nessus, painted by Padovanino around 1630, and purchased by John Ringling in 1929. With its warm, vibrant palette, rich contrasts of texture, and closeup, high-pitched drama, this painting illustrates a quintessentially Venetian take on Baroque style.

Additional information about these works can be found in the new catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and French Paintings in the Ringling Museum, available in the Museum Store.