The story
Two visitor favourites at the Appleton Museum of Art are by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, the French academic painter known for highly finished pictures of peasant girls and mythological scenes. The Young Shepherdess dates from 1868 and The Knitter from 1879, and both were gifts of the museum's founder, Arthur I. Appleton.
Appleton was an Illinois-born businessman whose father had founded the Appleton Electric Company in Chicago. With his wife Martha O'Driscoll, a former film actress, he bred thoroughbreds at Bridlewood Farm near Ocala, and in 1987 the couple opened the museum, a travertine-clad building with a long reflecting pool. Since 2004 it has been run by the College of Central Florida.
The collection now counts more than 24,000 objects. Besides the European galleries, whose names include Rodin and Jean-Léon Gérôme, it covers pre-Columbian, African and Asian art, along with a section of equine art that suits this horse-breeding corner of Florida.
