Since it opened in 2005 in a modest space at 61st Street and Broadway, the Museum of Biblical Art has been the little museum that could, the home of many highly focused, critically lauded shows that looked at Western art through the lens of the Bible and its legacy in Christian and Jewish tradition. Over the last two months, the museum has been drawing the largest crowds in its history for a curatorial coup, a show of sculpture by Donatello from the Duomo museum in Florence, pieces never before seen in the United States.

But the museum will end its existence on that high note, after a long struggle to raise enough money to keep itself going, its officials said Tuesday. At the close of the Donatello show on June 14, the museum will lay off its staff of 14 and wind down operations because of what Richard P. Townsend, its director, said were insurmountable financial hurdles in moving from its space, at 1865 Broadway, recently sold by the museum’s original patron, the American Bible Society.

“When the sale of the building was announced, that really brought everything to a head and started the clock ticking,” said Mr. Townsend, who was hired to lead the museum in 2013 and has been trying to build philanthropic support for it. “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.”