The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, is opening its first permanent ancient-art gallery this weekend, nearly a century after John Ringling acquired around 3,300 pieces of ancient Mediterranean art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1928. The collection, which includes Cypriot artifacts from the Early Bronze Age to the Hellenistic period, had largely remained in storage due to the 1929 stock-market crash and Ringling's death in 1936. Guest curator Joanna S. Smith and chief curator Sarah Cartwright spent a decade on conservation and research, recontextualizing objects originally collected by Luigi Palma di Cesnola, the Met's first director, who excavated in Cyprus from 1865 to 1876.
This opening matters because it transforms the Ringling Museum into a significant venue for ancient Cypriot art, which it already holds as the third-largest collection in North America. The gallery not only showcases previously unseen objects but also addresses the complex provenance and colonial excavation practices of the 19th century, offering a more nuanced understanding of how these artifacts came to Florida. It highlights the enduring legacy of John Ringling as a major art collector and underscores the importance of reinterpreting historical collections through contemporary scholarship.