Ringling's big top Baroque

Spectator, The, Feb 15, 2003 by Moore, Susan

Ringling was opportunistic but he was also discriminating. A comprehensive library of art books and auction catalogues, along with annotations and correspondence, suggest that he looked carefully at prospective purchases. Given the advances in scholarship, it is only to be expected that numerous attributions have not stood the test of time. What is striking about the Ringling's galleries, however, is that there are minor masterpieces even among the demoted canvases. Dominating the Renaissance galleries, for instance, is the extraordinary scowling patriarch standing with his family in an imposing Venetian portrait now thought not to be by Veronese but by his pupil Giovanni Antonio Fasolo. The arresting, candid gaze of the Caravaggesque `Judith with the Head of Holofernes' by the Milanese Francesco Cairo is another gem.

In a rare public statement about his museum, Ringling said that he wished to develop a collection as nearly universal as opportunities and purse would allow. As it turned out, its particular strength is north European and Italian Baroque painting. While Duveen - who, incidentally sold Ringling the largest known Gainsborough portrait, of Lieutenant General Philip Honywood - was a big promoter of the likes of Rembrandt and Hals, the Italian Baroque had few admirers. Ringling bought both - he paid his highest price of $100,000 for Hals's spirited portrait of Pieter Jacobsz Olycan (the Rubens cycle cost him the same). No doubt it appealed to him that the Italian artists were cheap by comparison, and big and showy. Nonetheless, well out of the mainstream of essentially puritan American taste, these pictures reflect a bold and independent spirit.

The Ringling has always been something of a well-kept secret - even its recent inspired refurbishment and reinstallation excited little attention outside the local press. Like our own V&A it suffers an identity crisis - everyone presumes it is a museum of the circus. Thanks to the flamboyant Chick Austin, the museum's first director, the Ringling now has that too as well as an 18th-century theatre shipped in from Asolo. The appeal of this ever evolving, fantastical place is that it bears the stamp of its founder's personality without being set in aspic. The Ringling Museum may not be The Greatest Show on Earth, but it is one of them.

Susan Moore on one of the great unsung art collections in America