Designed by fsc student and agb design fellow, riley karau

In 2022, Florida Southern Trustee and alumna Susan Roberts (Class of 1966) offered an incredible and generous gift to her College museum: four five-by-five-foot Italian Baroque paintings by the celebrated master Giulio Carpioni (1613-1678). The paintings, collectively titled The Four Seasons of Man and dating back to approximately 1675, were in dire need of conservation; their beautiful compositions were diminished, clouded by age and time. For nearly two years, the paintings were under the expert care of conservators in Miami. Now, the paintings — dramatically restored — are unveiled in their new, glorious state in our newly-expanded galleries for the first time.

In this installation, we pull back the curtain on the conservation process, giving visitors fascinating insight into the science behind bringing art back to life. The restored paintings on view here — Spring (Youth), Summer (Manhood), Autumn (Old Age), and Winter (Death) — have been  painstakingly cleaned, stabilized, repaired, re-lined, re-stretched, re-touched and re-varnished. As you approach each work, you will find not merely information on the subject matter and meaning of the paintings but also information on the expansive work undertaken to be able to hang and display them for the public for the first time in decades. Carpioni’s paintings still bear signs of their age — they are, after all, centuries old and already in diminished condition at the time of their acquisition — but side-by-side comparisons of the works Before & After (pre-conservation and post-conservation) demonstrate just how far The Four Season of Man have come from several years ago to be enjoyed today.