William B. Jordan

After Velázquez's attribution was confirmed, he donated the painting, then titled Portrait of Philip III (1623–31) and valued at around US$6 million, to the Prado Museum in 2016.

Following his death, several artworks from Jordan and Brownlee's collection were bequeathed to various museums by their estate.

Jordan revamped the collection by auctioning off paintings he deemed insignificant for a museum collection and acquiring new works before the museum reopened; the collection included Yard with Lunatics (1794) by Francisco Goya, and works of Francisco de Zurbarán and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

William Bryan Jordan Jr. (May 8, 1940January 22, 2018) was an American art historian who facilitated acquisitions, curated exhibitions, and authored publications on Spanish artists and still life paintings, particularly from the Golden Age.

Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, and later in San Antonio, Texas, Jordan studied at Washington and Lee University and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University.

William Bryan Jordan Jr. was born on May 8, 1940, in Nashville, Tennessee, to Dixie Owen Jordan and William Bryan Jordan.

He had three sisters: Ettie Lu Jordan Soard, Frances Jordan Hearn-Rigney, and Sue Jordan Rodarte.

They relocated to San Antonio, Texas in 1945, where he attended Alamo Heights High School.

Over the summers, he worked at the McNay Art Museum and was mentored by its first director John Palmer Leeper.

He oversaw Poets of the Cities: New York and San Francisco 1950–65 (1974), an exhibition on international contemporary arts, at the University Gallery and Dallas Museum of Arts.

Jordan graduated cum laude in 1962 with a bachelor's degree from Washington and Lee University, and completed his master's and doctorate in the history of Spanish art from the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University in 1964 and 1967, respectively.

Under the supervision of the Spanish art historian José López-Rey, Jordan focused on Juan van der Hamen for his doctoral thesis.

He spent eleven months evaluating archives in Spain, and discovered new painting records and biographical details of van der Hamen.

He became the founding director of the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in 1967.

With Algur H. Meadows' financial support, Jordan helped the museum acquire around 75 artworks and is credited for turning its collection into one of the most prominent collections of Spanish art outside Spain.

He was also the chair of fine arts at the Meadows School of the Arts and an adjunct curator of the Dallas Museum of Art.

Jordan compiled an illustrated catalog and a monograph on the painter in his two-volume 1967 dissertation, Juan van der Hamen y León.

When Jordan was offered the post of the director of the recently opened Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, the museum was struggling with an art scandal that had damaged its reputation; 44 paintings in their collection had turned out to have been forgeries, including counterfeits by Elmyr de Hory.

Jordan visited the museum with López-Rey, and concluded that he would have to "essentially build [the collection] from scratch".

Algur H. Meadows, the museum's founder and benefactor, pledged over US$1 million (equivalent to US$ million in ) to rebuild their Spanish art collection, and Jordan accepted the position.

Jordan became the founding director of the Meadows Museum and chair of fine arts at the Meadows School of the Arts in 1967.

The museum closed for a few months, and Jordan began evaluating its collection with help from López-Rey and Diego Angulo Íñiguez.

In a 1968 Art Journal article, Jordan discussed their recent additions and wrote that the museum had begun an acquisitions program to further expand their collection; he followed up with the 1974 collection catalog, The Meadows Museum: A Visitor's Guide to the Collection.

In 1971–72, Jordan organized an exhibition on a collection of works related to Dennis Hopper, and a postwar art exhibition of works by Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Wallace Burnett at the University Gallery of Southern Methodist University.

In 1975, Jordan was appointed a full professor at the Meadows School of the Arts, where he taught courses on Spanish art history and connoisseurship.

Jordan was a founding member and general secretary from 1976 to 1978 of the American Society for Hispanic Art Historical Studies.

He joined the Dallas Museum of Art as the adjunct curator of European art in 1977, a post he held until 1982.

He curated Dallas Collects: Impressionist and Early Modern Masters (1978) for the 75th anniversary of the museum, assembling 115 works from local private collections, and authored its exhibition catalog.

In subsequent years, Jordan became a member of the Board of Trustees, and member and chairman of the Committee on Collections of the Dallas Museum of Art.

With Meadows' financial support, Jordan acquired several prominent works at auctions and from art dealers, and significantly expanded the Meadows Museum's collection.

The collaboration continued until Meadows' death in a car accident in 1978.

Jordan organized 20th Century Sculpture: Mr. and Mrs. Raymond D. Nasher Collection, the first exhibition of Patsy and Raymond Nasher's sculpture collection, at the University Gallery in 1978.

He oversaw contemporary art exhibitions Paintings and Drawings by Cy Twombly and Livres d'Artiste by Braque, Matisse, and Picasso from the Collection of the Bridwell Library at the same venue in 1980.

During his tenure, Jordan acquired around 75 artworks, and helped develop the museum's sculpture collection at the "Elizabeth Meadows Sculpture Garden".

After leaving the Meadows Museum, Jordan served as the deputy director and chief curator of the Kimbell Art Museum from 1981 to 1990, and worked on several still life exhibitions and publications, including Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, 1600–1650 (1985) and Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya (1995).

Jordan purchased a then-misattributed painting — that he believed was by Diego Velázquez — for £1,000 in 1988.

Jordan's research of over 40 years on Juan van der Hamen culminated in his 2005 book Juan van der Hamen y León & the Court of Madrid.

He was on the board of various museums and art institutes, and was made an honorary trustee of the Prado Museum in 2017.

Known for his connoisseurship, Jordan worked as an acquisition and attribution expert, and maintained a private collection with his husband Robert Dean Brownlee.

His acquisitions included works by Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Zurbarán, Jusepe de Ribera and Murillo, six paintings by Goya from the 18th and 19th centuries, and 20th-century works of Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Juan Gris.