FLORIAN - The Most Traveled Man on Earth

Art of the Florians
<strong>The</strong> Florian family included numerous artists, including the following nine who have
been clearly identified:
1. Jean Baptiste Florian Jolly de Pontcadeuc
2. Margareurite Marie Le Det de Segray (wife of Jean Baptiste)
<strong>The</strong>ir daughters (in order of birth):
3. Laura Eugenie Florian (Bowers)
4. Virginia Josephine Florian (Russell)
5. Elisabeth Florian (Talcott)
6. Azelia Felicite Florian
7. Pierre Renee Le Det de Segray (brother of Marguerite)
8. Emma Talcott (Norman) (daughter of Elisabeth Florian (Talcott)
9. Laura Margaret Bowers (daughter of Laura Eugenie Florian)
<strong>The</strong> family worked mainly in oil paint, watercolors and chalk. Some of their creations
survive in the Mobile Museum of Art and the Mobile Public Library.
Also at these two locations are the remains of a truly remarkable art collection, possibly
one of the earliest major collections in Alabama and perhaps the South. According to
information in what is now called the Sims Collection (Estelle Sims was a Florian
descendant), the original collection of art of Jean Baptiste and his wife and daughters,
consisted of 400 items. (!) <strong>The</strong>se included paintings, drawings, lithographs, water colors,
engravings, vases, etc. <strong>The</strong>se count only the items brought to America or created in
America, not the many others left behind in France when the family fled the French
Revolution.
It appears that on occasion after fleeing France, Jean Baptiste was able to go back to
France to salvage some of the art that he and his wife had amassed in their chateaus in
France. While in the US, the family ordered items from France, and added to their
sizeable collection.
According to information at the Mobile Public Library, written by historian Herndon
Smith, at the auction of 1926 the contents of the Sims family home, authorized by the
will of Florian descendant Estelle Short Higgs Sims, the majority of the Florian family
items were sold and scattered.
In 1930, with the death of Daniel Sims, husband of Estelle, the remainder of the Florian
family collection was donated to the Mobile Public Library, and became known as the
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