Fine Art Collection

The Fine Art collection contains approximately 400 paintings and several thousand prints, drawings and other works on paper ranging from the 17th through 20th centuries. Many of the oil paintings are hung on walls throughout the building in thematic groupings such as “Portraits of Prominent New Yorkers” and “Historical Views of and from Brooklyn.” Notable works in the collection include paintings by Francis Guy, John Wesley Jarvis, John Mackie Falconer,  the Bard Brothers, and 17th century drawings by Dutch traveler Jaspar Danckaerts, etchings by Joseph Pennell, and architectural studies by Francis Hopkinson Smith. The collection is gradually being photographed and cataloged onto an in-house database which will ultimately be available for public searches.

BHS also holds a large collection of decorative art and artifacts including furniture, sculpture and ephemera. These objects are in the preliminary stages of documentation and study and are not yet publicly accessible.

The BHS Fine Arts Initiative has been made possible by a very generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.

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