Category: Artful Insights

Juana Romani’s Femme au fond rouge
This summer, The Ringling made an important addition to its collection of 19th-century European art with the acquisition of a stunning work by the Italian-born painter Juana Romani (1867-1924). Romani’s Femme au fond rouge (Woman on a Red Background) will be presented at The Ringling for the first time as part of the exhibition A Decade of Collecting, on view in the galleries of the Arthur F. and Ulla R. Searing Wing from October 22, 2022 through January 22, 2023. READ MORE
Guercino and Bisi: Fellow Artists and Friends
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1599 - 1666), called Il Guercino in reference to his pronounced squint, was a leading painter of the Baroque period. He painted this magnificent portrait of his fellow artist and friend, the Franciscan friar Bonaventura Bisi (1601 - 1659), in about 1658-59, toward the end of Bisi’s life. READ MORE
A Ringling Bronze and the Augusto Grimani
A late 19th/early 20th century bronze statue in the collection of the Ringling Museum of Art is a liberal copy after a renowned ancient marble statue, the so-called Augusto Grimani. Among the reproduction sculptures purchased by John Ringling in the 1920s and 30s is an over life-size, bronze statue of a Roman general (fig. 1). The figure wears a decorated breastplate with a short skirt terminating just above the knees and a mantle thrown over his left shoulder READ MORE