[1] The Rotunda was built at the initiative of American artist John Vanderlyn to display panoramic paintings.

According to historians Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Vanderlyn was motivated by the refusal of the city's cultural elite to include paintings such as his nude Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos[2] in public exhibitions on the grounds that it was an affront to public decency.

Widely regarded as the city's first art museum,[4][5][1] it operated on a commercial footing.

[3] The Rotunda opened in 1818 to display Vanderlyn's Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles,[3] a cyclorama now on display in a purpose-built, circular room in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City.

[4][1] On November 5, 1852, in the offices of the Croton Aqueduct Department, the American Society of Civil Engineers and Architects was founded.