This thesis studies the art collection amassed by Peter A.B. Widener and refined by his son Joseph during and at the end of the American Gilded Age. Spanning the years after the Civil War into the 1920s, many new-monied men like P. A. B. Widener, who made his fortune building the Philadelphia transit system, collected art, namely Old Masters, to build social status and demonstrate wealth. In 1897, Peter A.B. Widener hired Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer to design a palatial family estate, Lynnewood Hall, as a residence and gallery space for his art collection. Both Widener men believed art enhanced human experience and opened the private collection to the public. In 1929, Joseph Widener hired Edith Standen as Art Secretary for the collection. Edith’s diaries, correspondence, and her written work related to Lynnewood Hall, reveal her influential role in presenting the collection to visitors, establishing records for and researching the history of objects, and preparing the collection during its transition to the National Art Gallery in Washington D.C. following Joseph Widener’s donation to the new museum in 1942. The Widener Collection will never again hang in Lynnewood Hall’s gallery spaces, but Edith Standen’s written words document the art and life in the house and paint a picture or Widener-era Lynnewood Hall that can inspire future interpretations and installations of art or theatrical representations of the Widener Collection. Returning art to Lynnewood Hall in one way or another can return a spirit of artful presence to a house built for art.