Beyond the Medici: The Haukohl Family Collection

  Rollins Museum of Art

September 9 through January 7, 2024

From left: Onorio Marinari (1617-1716), Madonna and Child, Oil on canvas, 33.5 x 29.5 in., Haukohl Collection.; Felice Ficherelli (1605-1660), St. Sebastian Tended by Saint Irene, Oil on canvas, 40.2 x 40.2 in., Haukohl Collection.Photo by MNHA/Tom Lucas.

The Rollins Museum of Art (RMA) is pleased to announce it will unveil Beyond the Medici: The Haukohl Family Collection, a touring exhibition of Florentine Baroque art from the 16th to 18th centuries. Opening September 9 and running through January 7, 2024, the exhibition makes its first U.S. stop at RMA, traveling from there to universities across the country in a tour that seeks to advance the humanities and scholastic study of old master art at colleges and universities.

17th-Century Florentine Sculpture, Saint Michael Archangel, mid-17th century, Polychrome wood, 25 15/64 x 18 57/64 x 11 1/2 in., Haukohl Collection.Photo by MNHA/Tom Lucas.

The exhibition features a selection of works from the Haukohl Family Collection, the largest private collection of Florentine Baroque art from the 16th to 18th centuries and perhaps the most important outside Italy. Considering the work in the context of the influential Medici dynasty, whose leadership in Florence played an important role in the unfurling of the Renaissance and Baroque movements, the collection represents a deep fascination with a particular style of Baroque art that is more restrained, more poetic, and less well-known.

Beyond the Medici: The Haukohl Collection hopes to demonstrate that the Florentine artists of this time influenced European art history to a far greater extent than art historical research and the general public have previously perceived.

“Opening new doors onto the consequential role of art in society and history is at the core of our mission,” says Ena Heller, Bruce A. Beal Director of RMA. “The Haukohl collection offers an amazing opportunity for a college art museum like ours to shine a spotlight onto a period that often receives only cursory attention.”

Pietro (Pier) Dandini (Italian, 1646-1712), Esther Before Ahasuerus ,Oil on canvas, 33 31/32 x 57 3/32 in., Haukohl Collection.Photo by MHNA/Tom Lucas.

Comprising six sculptures, 24 paintings (many in their original 17th-century frames), one drawing, and one textile, Beyond the Medici is sure to spark conversation around these richly varied, sensuous, and mystical works.

Catalogue

Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl, a Houston-based art collector and cofounder of the Medici Archive Project, has built America's largest private collection of Florentine baroque paintings from the 17th to 18th centuries. The paintings, drawings, textiles, and sculpture illustrated in the collection document the Medici patronage and artists of the period. Particular attention is paid to the Dandini Family of painters: Cesare, Vincenzo, Pier and Ottaviano. Essays by Drs. Eike Schmidt, James Bradburn, Federico Berti, Fabio Sottili and Francesco Scasciamacchia address a broad overview of collecting and history of the period. . Each artist is reviewed in depth along with a generous bibliography. The exhibition has toured five museums in Europe from 2018-2023. The exhibition continues in the United States in 2023-2025 at the Rollins Museum of Art, The David Owsley Museum of Art, and the Arthur Ross Gallery.

Catalogue