Vast Gothic art collection, sold decades ago, makes temporary return to popular RI mansion
By Eric Tucker, APSunday, May 30, 2010
Gothic art collection back at popular RI mansion
NEWPORT, R.I. — A popular Rhode Island mansion has temporarily reclaimed a vast collection of Gothic art that once decorated its walls and furnishings.
The collection of more than 300 paintings and decorative items once belonged to William K. and Alva Vanderbilt, who displayed it inside Marble House, the Newport mansion where she and her husband lived.
But Alva Vanderbilt closed the mansion in 1925 and later sold the art to circus entrepreneur John Ringling. The collection now belongs to the John and Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Fla.
The Ringling Museum has loaned the collection to Marble House through the end of October. The items are displayed in the precise location where Vanderbilt placed them a century ago.
Marble House is one of the most popular of Newport’s Gilded Age mansions.
