ART MUSEUM & COURTYARD
SARASOTA
Enjoy free admission to the art museum & courtyard on Mondays throughout the year. The manicured grouds, cafe, and playground are open to the public throughout the week. The museum is made up of 21 galleries of American art, Asian art, contemporary art, European paintings, and ancient artifacts from Cyprus. The collection consists of over 10,000 pieces including decorative arts, drawings, paintings, photographs, prints, and sculptures that range from antiquity to contemporary art. The museum contains works by Bernini, Boudin, Duchamp, Gainsborough, Poussin, Velaquez, and more. Its collection of Rubens paintings is world-renowned, and a towering replica of Michelangelo’s David greets visitors to the courtyard.
CA’ D’ZAN & ROSE GARDEN
SARASOTA
The Ringlings built their winter home, a 56-room, 22,000 square foot, Venetian Gothic mansion named Ca d’Zan or “House of John, on Sarasota Bay. This winter home, built in 1926, cost the Ringlings $1.5M. John Ringling’s bedroom is furnished with pieces made in France in the 1850s. He paid $35,000 for the 9-piece set ($750,000 today). Incidentally, are you aware the living room chandelier in the Ca d’Zan came from the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, the very hotel that was torn down in 1929 to make way for the Empire State Building? At Christmas, Ringling staff transform the home for the holidays while Mable’s inimitable rose garden is pruned throughout the year by wonderful volunteers. The Ringling is more than an art museum.