Ringling, Böhler, Thyssen and the "Greta Garbo Vermeer"

This story is a case study of the life of a singular painting, The Girl with the Blue Hat, or The Girl in an Antique Costume and its place in the twentieth-century revival of the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. Notwithstanding many art purchases and acquisitions, Ringling’s museum in Sarasota, Florida held very few records of his selling activities in Europe. This all changed in 1995 when the Ringling Archives received a treasure trove of German archival documents found in the family home of Ringling’s dealer, Julius Wilhelm Böhler (1883-1966), and sent by Böhler’s nephew, Florian Eitle-Böhler. There was now documentary evidence that Ringling was a collector, investor, and partner, working in close consort with Böhler, based in Munich.The authors, former curator and librarian at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, discovered when translating the newly acquired records, that John Ringling himself was once the co-owner with the Cassirer Gallery of a “missing” portrait painting by a twentieth-century imitator of Vermeer. The search began for a work of art not seen publicly in many decades. Read more