John G. Johnson

[1] Johnson declined offers to be nominated to the United States Supreme Court from Presidents James Garfield and Grover Cleveland.

[1] In an April 15, 1917 obituary, The New York Times called him, "the greatest lawyer in the English-speaking world," and, "probably less known to the general public in proportion to his importance than any other man in the United States.

He also bought works by artists who were his contemporaries, including Eduard Charlemont, Gustave Courbet, Mariano Fortuny, T. Alexander Harrison, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent, and James Whistler.

There are Pesellino's Virgin and Child Between Two Saints, an early Corregio, a portrait by Botticelli of extreme historical as well as aesthetic interest, and a beautiful predella by that master recounting the legend of Mary Magdalen, a magnificently dramatic Pietà by Crivelli, and a decorative pair of panels by Cima da Conegliano, Carpaccio's tender Story of Alcione, a Virgin and Child by Giovanni Bellini, a Magdalen Reading by Luca Signorelli, authentic specimens of Basaiti and Catena, and other paintings that in more than one instance represent masters to be found in but few of the great European galleries.

Among these Pieter Breughel's two characteristic compositions, and a noble array of pictures by Jan Steen, more than any other American collection possesses, claim particular attention.

The City's fire marshal subsequently found 510 South Broad Street not to be fireproof, and in June 1933 the 275 exhibited works were "temporarily" transferred to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.