VA N DY C K G A L L E RY
Joseph, along with instructions as to its final disposi-
time in the spring of 1941, the Widener collection
tion. The options included the sale of the collection
was one of its major attractions, conferring on the
to enrich the estate or its donation in its entirety to a
institution automatic status as one of the country’s
museum in Philadelphia, New York, or the District of
premier art museums. While this was a remarkable
Columbia. New York was never in serious contention
family’s munificent gift to the nation, it served as a
for the gift; Joseph sat on the board of The
death knell for Lynnewood Hall.
Philadelphia Museum of Art and it seemed most
Within two years Joseph Widener was dead. In
likely to receive the Widener bounty. Ultimately the
June of 1944, the Philadelphia auction house, Samuel
persuasive arguments of Andrew Mellon and the
T. Freeman Company, was hired to sell the mansion’s
trustees of the National Gallery of Art combined with
still considerable contents. As for the property itself,
Widener’s rancor at Philadelphia society for branding
Lynnewood Farm was sold to a developer who quickly
him a parvenu swung the pendulum in favor of
drew plans for a $20 million apartment complex called
Washington. A tearful Joseph Widener watched his
Lynnewood Gardens. At the same time the mansion
beloved creation dismantled as the paintings collec-
and its surrounding park were sold to an educational
tion was being shipped to its new home at the
group wanting to develop a Protestant university on
National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. When
the site. The Widener estate foreclosed on this venture
the National Gallery opened its doors for the first
after the fledgling school defaulted on its loan. In 1948
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