Ms. Grace believes she has several co-religionists at Ringling Brothers, though she's the only performer.

WSJ: Ringling Brothers' Air Apparent

"That's a very unusual background, " conceded Nicole Feld, the executive vice president of Feld Entertainment, which owns Ringling Brothers.

WSJ: Ringling Brothers' Air Apparent

The show is organized thematically, but we first encounter the earliest included work, the Ringling's full-length portrait of Francesco Franceschini.

WSJ: More than a Mere Colorist | Veronese | Ringling Museum of Art

"Bello Mania" includes a slideshow paying tribute to his mother and father, an Italian acrobat and Swiss tightrope artist who met while touring with Ringling Bros. during the 1950s.

WSJ: AP Photos: Circus star comes knocking in NYC

In fact, her living quarters on the mile-long Ringling Brothers train that transports the show around the country is sufficiently diminutive that when she finishes books she ships them home.

WSJ: Ringling Brothers' Air Apparent

According to Ms. Feld, a member of the third generation of her family to run the Ringling Brothers circus, Mr. Mizer got launched from a device that more closely resembled a crossbow.

WSJ: Ringling Brothers' Air Apparent

Conceived and organized by Virginia Brilliant, the Ringling's curator of European Art, in cooperation with Frederick Ilchman, curator of paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in part to set the Ringling's important Veronese paintings in context, the show is the first comprehensive overview of Veronese's work in more than 20 years.

WSJ: More than a Mere Colorist | Veronese | Ringling Museum of Art