Circus art reached its most extravagant level in the circus wagon. Here are some circus wagons I have seen in my travels, all of them in exhibitions of circus memorabilia:

This circus wagon staged Cinderella in shiny gold.

The giraffe required special dimensions and a canopy.

In last week’s column, I mentioned an unpleasant experience I had at a Ringling Brothers museum I had in Florida. It happened 48 years ago. I’m sure the malcontent involved is no longer among the living.

Sarasota, Florida, was the wintering grounds for the Ringling Brothers Circus. Here the performers could rest, polish up their acts, redesign their costumes, and refurbish their equipment. John Ringling was an art collector, and it was only natural that he would build a museum there to house his art and his circus archives. It really wasn’t practical to schlep them around from city to city in circus trucks and wagons.

I was taking painter and collector Nat Leeb and his wife Paule on a two-month cross-country tour of American art museums. It was in November, and we were about to start the last leg of our journey up the East coast back to Maryland. We wanted to see the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota before going on to Cape Canaveral.

It took us a while to find the museum, and we arrived just half an hour before closing time. This would at least give us a chance to glance at its collection.

We were barely inside the door when the director rushed up and declared the museum had just closed. We had to leave immediately.

“But this gentleman has traveled six thousand miles from Paris, France, just to see this collection,” I said. “You don’t close for another half hour.”

My plea cut no ice. We were booted out. Evidently the man was eager to keep a more important assignation. With dentist or doxy? Who knows? We left, the only ungracious experience in two months of travel. It was a very un-circus experience.