Their collection initially focused on painters of the Munich School such as Ludwig Herterich, Leo Putz and Franz von Stuck.

Their villa Langmatt, built in Baden in 1901, received its own gallery extension for the painting collection in 1906.

Until WWII, the Brown couple, advised by the painter Carl Montag, acquired paintings by the French Impressionists in Paris.

[7][8][9] One of the Cézannes, entitled Fruits et pot de gingembre,[10] was found to have been owned by a Jewish art collector who was persecuted by the Nazis.

They had three sons; Brown died on 1 August 1941, the Swiss National Day, at the Langmatt Estate in Baden, Switzerland, aged 76.