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historical notes
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Bryan opened his Gallery of Christian Art in New York City in 1852 in the rooms of the New York Society Library, 348 Broadway, later it occupied a space at 843 Broadway, and finally on the second story of a corner building at Broadway and 13th Street (839 Broadway) before it was displayed at the Cooper Institute (later Cooper Union). Bryan reportedly dissatisfied with the lighting at the Cooper Union then transferred the collection to the New-York Historical Society in 1867.
The Bryan collection included work by or, attributed to Paolo di Giovanni, Giacomo Galli, Master of the Female Half-Lengths, David Teniers, Charles Wilson Peale, Guido Reni, Cimabue, Giotto, Botticelli, Perugino, Da Vinci, Titian, Fra Bartolomeo, Mantegna, Memling, Le Brun, Gainsborough, Correggio, Vernet, Hogarth, Raphael, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Gerard Terborch.
In 1968, the New York State Supreme Court released the society from the restrictions of Bryan's gift: in the following years 381 paintings from the collection were auctioned off. In 1995, the society sold the remaining 183 Old Master paintings from Bryan’s collection at Sotheby’s Auction house.
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