NANTUCKET, MASSACUSETTS.- Jane Engelhard, a philanthropist and art collector whose many gifts included major donations to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at her home. She was 86. As the wife of Charles Engelhard, owner of a vast international business empire, she helped Jacqueline Kennedy restore the White House, regularly made best-dressed lists and was a fixture of New York society. After Mr. Engelhard’s death in 1971, Mrs. Engelhard continued to display eclectic taste in her personal collecting, picking up rarities like the original presidential proclamation of the Louisiana Purchase as well as Monets. Her gifts to the Met included the Charles Engelhard Court in the museum’s American Wing in 1980. She was a trustee from 1974 until 1981, when she became a trustee emeritus. She also gave to many smaller institutions, including the Newark Museum and the New Jersey Symphony, paying all of the salary expenses of the orchestra in some years.
Jane Pinto-Reis Brian was born on August 12, 1917, in Qingdao, China, where her father was serving as Brazil’s ambassador. The family moved to Paris, where she was educated at the Couvent des Oiseaux. She married Fritz Mannheimer, a Dutch banker. Eight weeks after they wed, Dr. Mannheimer died. The next day, his investment house closed, bankrupt. She did inherit a microfilm company that copied United States war records and material for the Library of Congress, on whose board she later served. She was executive vice president of the microfilm company. After five years there, she married Mr. Engelhard, whose portfolio (ranging from gold, platinum, diamonds and timber to racehorses like Nijinsky II, a winner of the English Triple Crown) was once referred to as "a consortium of conglomerates." They had houses in Johannesburg, in Maine and on the Gaspé Peninsula of Canada, and apartments in Manhattan, Rome and London.