Jennie Byrd Bryan Payne

Jennie Byrd Bryan Payne
1874 portrait by George Peter Alexander Healy (which depicts her as painting a portrait of Healey)
Born	Jennie Byrd Bryan 1857 Elmhurst, Illinois
Died	August 1, 1919 (age 61 or 60) Elmhurst, Illinois
Resting place	Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C.
Spouse	John Barton Payne ​ (m. 1913)​
Father	Thomas Barbour Bryan
Relatives	Charles Page Bryan (brother) Daniel Bryan (grandfather)[1] James Barbour (great-uncle)[1] Philip P. Barbour (great-uncle)[1] Thomas Barbour (great-grandfather)[2] Bryan Lathrop (cousin)[3] Barbour Lathrop (cousin)[1] Florence Lathrop Field Page (cousin)[1]

Jennie Byrd Bryan Payne (1857–August 1, 1919) was an American philanthropist, artist and society figure. She was a member of the Barbour family.

Soon after her death, the founding gift for what became the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was made by her husband John Barton Payne in memory of her and her mother-in-law.

Biography

Childhood photograph with her father and brother Charles, circa 1865

Born Jennie Byrd Bryan in 1857 in Elmhurst, Illinois (at the time known as "Cottage Hill"), she was the daughter of Thomas Barbour Bryan and the elder Jennie Byrd Bryan.^[1] She was a member of the esteemed Barbour family through her paternal grandmother.^[1][4]

She was a student of artist George Peter Alexander Healy, who, for six years, lived in a cottage adjacent to her family's Eagle Nest estate in Cottage Hill (Elmhurst).^[5][6][7]

As an adult, residing in Washington, D.C., she was prominent in the city's society, and was a notable philanthropist.^[8] Bryan continued to be an artist, establishing renown.^[9][10] She had portraits displayed in collections across the country.^[4]

She joined her older brother Charles Page Bryan, a diplomat, on many of his assignments abroad. For several years, she acted as a hostess at the United States Embassy to Japan while her brother served as United States ambassador to Japan.^[8]

In 1913, she married John Barton Payne, taking his surname.^[1][11] The Paynes never had any children.^[12]

Payne died on August 1, 1919, at her summer house in Elmhurst. She had been sick or two weeks before her death.^[13][14] She was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.^[15]

After her father's death, many of the paintings from his large collection of George Peter Alexander Healy's works had been inherited by her.^[16] In 1920, her widowed husband gave a collection of forty masterpieces to the State of Virginia, a gift valued at time at over $1 million.^[16] In this gift were several of the paintings by Healy.^[16] This gift, which was given by her widowed husband alongside a financial gift of $100,000 for a museum to house the art, came with a stipulation that the state must match his gift. This was eventually done in 1932, and construction began on the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.^[17] The gift had been made in memory of both Jennie Byrd Bryan Payne and her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Barton Payne.^[18]

References

1. "Bryan001". www.elmhursthistory.org. Elmhurst Historical Society. Archived from the original on May 28, 2021. Retrieved January 1, 2021.
2. Biographical Sketches Of The Leading Men Of Chicago, written by the Best Talent of the Northwest. Chicago: Wilson & St. Clair, Publishers. 1868.
3. "Remembering Bryan Lathrop". Glessner House. May 28, 2016. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
4. "Gallery of Local Celebrities No. XVI – Thomas B. Bryan". Newspapers.com. Chicago Tribune. May 13, 1900.
5. "George Peter Alexander Healy (1813–1894)". Illinois Historical Art Project. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
6. "Elmhurst". DuPage County Historical Society. September 23, 2019. Archived from the original on August 14, 2020. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
7. "Jennie Byrd Bryan (Primary Title) – (19.1.25)". Virginia Museum of Fine Arts |. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
8. "MRS. JENNIE B. PAYNE DIES IN CHICAGO". Newspapers.com. Evening Star. 2 Aug 1919. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
9. "Winter Antiques Show Loan Exhibition — Citizen Philanthropists: Patrons And Placemaking At The Virginia Museum Of Fine Arts". The Winter Show. 15 January 2018. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
10. Toler, John (1 July 2018). "The Greatest Volunteer to Humanity". Piedmont Lifestyle. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
11. Kohler, Sue A.; Carson, Jeffrey R.; Arts, United States Commission of Fine (1978). "Sixteenth Street Architecture". Commission of Fine Arts. p. 104. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
12. "JOHN B. PAYNE FUNERAL TO BE HELD SUNDAY". Newspapers.com. Chicago Tribune. 25 Jan 1935. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
13. "Mrs. John Barton Payne Dead". Newspapers.com. The Jasper Weekly Courier. 15 Aug 1919. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
14. "MRS. PAYNE'S FUNERAL WILL BE HELD HERE". Newspapers.com. The Washington Herald. 2 Aug 1919. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
15. "MRS. JENNIE B. PAYNE". Newspapers.com. The Washington Times. 2 Aug 1919. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
16. "The Spokesman and Harness World, Volume 36". Spokesman Publishing Company. 1920. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
17. Slipek Jr., Edwin (March 30, 2010). "Open Indulgence". Style Weekly. Archived from the original on May 28, 2021. Retrieved February 27, 2011.
18. Holmes, Elizabeth (1 January 1993). "The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts: its Founding, 1930-1936". Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. doi:10.21220/s2-xr1t-4536. Retrieved 9 November 2021.

External links

• Media related to Jennie Byrd Bryan Payne at Wikimedia Commons