Robert M. Scott, civic leader, 76

PHILADELPHIA -- Arts and civic leader Robert Montgomery Scott, the stylish scion of two prominent families who was once dubbed ''The Quintessential Philadelphian," died Thursday, a Bryn Mawr Hospital spokeswoman said. He was 76.

He died of liver failure The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Mr. Scott's mother, socialite Hope Montgomery Scott, was the model for Katharine Hepburn's character in the 1940 film, ''The Philadelphia Story." His father, investment banker Edgar Scott, was an heir to the Pennsylvania Railroad fortune.

Mr. Scott worked as a law partner in the city and as a diplomatic aide in Britain, but is perhaps best known for running The Philadelphia Museum of Art from 1982 to 1996, when the museum's endowment grew from less than $20 million to $100 million and its annual attendance from 400,000 to 950,000.

Mr. Scott was raised at Ardrossan, his grandfather's 650-acre estate in Wayne. After attending Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania law school, he joined the city law firm of Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads, which had been founded by a great-uncle.

He went to Great Britain in 1969 to serve for four years as special assistant to US Ambassador Walter Annenberg. He was also president of the Academy of Music, then home to the Philadelphia Orchestra. Philadelphia Magazine called him the ''The Quintessential Philadelphian" in a 1993 profile.