The Museum of Biblical Art will close its doors on June 14, officials announced Tuesday.
The New York cultural institution opened in 2005, and offered critically-acclaimed exhibitions.
The museum, at 61st and Broadway, showcased Western art in a biblical context, and drew record crowds in the past two months.
Visitors flocked to see "Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces From Florence Cathedral" - a 23-piece exhibition of the birth of the Renaissance Period, the New York Times reports.
The surge of donations was not enough to offset years of low financial support, however. Representatives for the museum said the facility long struggled to keep its doors open. The problems came to a head when the museum's original patron, the American Bible Society, sold the space.
"When the sale of the building was announced,that really brought everything to a head and started the clock ticking," said museum director Richard P. Townsend. "In the end, it just wasn't enough time. I can't tell you the various angles, the different angles, that we explored this from."
The museum became independent of the Society in 2005, but continued to receive operational support. That support was to be phased out by the museum and replaced with funds it raised on its own, but the cost of renting a new space in Manhattan would have been millions of dollars higher than their budget.
There was also a disconnect in attracting visitors as the museum tried to attract both secular and religious benefactors.
"It was just too much," Townsend admitted. "I saw the options narrowing over the past two or so months."
He said the increased patronage due to the "Sculpture in the Age of Donatello" exhibit made the closing all the more difficult. The museum employed 14 staff members, who will be laid off.
