Louisine Havemeyer

Louisine Waldron Elder was born in New York City on July 28, 1855, to a merchant George W. Elder (1831–1873) and his wife, Matilda Adelaide Waldron (1834–1907). She was the second of four children: Anne Eliza Elder, later Mrs. Henry Norcross Munn (1853–1917), Adaline Deliverance Mapes Elder, later Mrs. Samuel Twyford Peters (1859–1943), and brother George Waldron Elder (1860–1916).

Shortly after her father's death, Louisine Elder and her family travelled to Europe for a three-year stay. They set sail on May 25, 1873, aboard the S.S. Calabria, accompanied by their extended family, aunt Amanda McCready and family, and cousin Mary Mapes Dodge, the editor of St. Nicholas Magazine and author of Hans Brinker; or the Silver Skates.^[1] Mary Mapes Dodge's sister Sophie Mapes Tolles was living in Paris with her friend Emily Sartain, studying art in the atelier of Evariste Luminais and boarding in the pensionnat of Mme. Del Sarte, widow of François Del Sarte, famed teacher of the art of expression. Louisine and her sister Addie joined Sophie Mapes Tolles and Emily Sartain in boarding at Mme. Del Sarte's, and it was during this time that Sartain introduced Louisine to Mary Cassatt.^[2] Fellow Philadelphians, Cassatt and Sartain had studied together at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in the early 1860s and travelled to Europe together in the fall of 1871.^[3] During this time, Mary Cassatt took Louisine Elder under her wing, becoming a mentor and encouraging her to make her first art acquisition, a pastel by Edgar Degas.^[4] As time passed, particularly after Louisine married Henry O. Havemeyer, Cassatt became an advisor to the Havemeyers, helping to build their art collection and facilitating the working relationship which they would have with the Impressionist Artists, including Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet. A lifelong friendship developed between Louisine Havemeyer and Mary Cassatt, who later made several pastels of Louisine and her children.

Together with her husband, Louisine would build perhaps the finest art collection in America. Her three-story mansion at Fifth Avenue and East 66th Street in New York was filled with the finest possible examples of works by Manet, El Greco, Rembrandt, and Corot. The home was decorated 1889-1890 by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Samuel Colman, who made it an elegant showplace for their patron's varied and important collections.^[5] Henry Clay Frick, J.P. Morgan, and Mrs. Isabella Stewart Gardner were among the collectors with which Mr. and Mrs. Havemeyer would have known and competed.

On August 22, 1883, a decade after her father's death, Louisine married Henry O. Havemeyer of the American Sugar Refining Company.*

Louisine and Henry Osborne had three children:

• Adaline Havemeyer, a.k.a. Mrs. Peter H.B. Frelinghuysen — (1884–1963)
• Horace Havemeyer — (1886–1956)
• Electra Havemeyer, a.k.a. Mrs. James Watson Webb — (1888–1960)

* (Prior to his marriage to Louisine, Henry had been married to Louisine's aunt Mary Louise Elder (1847–1897), but that marriage ended in divorce.)

In addition to her standing as an early and important collector of Impressionist art, Louisine Havemeyer was an advocate of women's rights.

 

After her husband's death in 1907, Mrs. Havemeyer focused her attention on the women's suffrage movement. In 1912 she lent her artistic collection to Knoedler's Gallery in New York to raise money for the cause.^[6] In 1913, she founded the National Woman's Party with the radical suffragist Alice Paul. (The organization was previously known as the "Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage".) She repeated the money raising art exhibition at Knoedler's in 1915.^[6]

With the financial backing of Mrs. Havemeyer and others like her, Ms. Paul launched an increasingly confrontational series of protests that agitated for the right to vote. Paul's most famous efforts were the 1913 National Suffrage Parade, which produced a riot on the eve of President Woodrow Wilson's first inauguration and, as a member of the Silent Sentinels, the wartime picketing of the White House. During the latter, Paul used portions of the President's speeches heralding the defense of democracy in Europe which she masterfully contrasted with the denial of liberty to American women. When jailed for obstructing traffic in 1917, she hunger struck, bringing tremendous pressure to bear on the Congress and Wilson Administration. The Nineteenth Amendment, which extended voting rights to women, was debated by Congress, gained the necessary 2/3 votes in 1919, was sent to the states for ratification, and gained the necessary 3/4 of states ratifying in 1920.

Louisine Havemeyer became a well-known suffragist, publishing two articles about her work for the cause in Scribner's Magazine. The first, entitled "The Prison Special: Memories of a Militant", appeared in May 1922, and the other, "The Suffrage Torch: Memories of a Militant" appeared in June the same year.^[7] In 1912 and 1915, Mrs. Havemeyer organized exhibitions of art works from her collection at Knoedler Gallery to raise funds to support suffrage efforts.^[8] She participated in marches, much to the dismay of her children ^{[citation needed]}, down New York's famed Fifth Avenue and addressed a standing room only audience at Carnegie Hall upon the completion of a nationwide speaking tour. A famous photograph of Mrs. Havemeyer shows her with an electric torch, similar in design to that of the Statue of Liberty, among other prominent suffragists. Her attempt to burn an effigy of President Wilson outside the White House in 1919 drew national attention.

After a period of failing health, Mrs. Havemeyer died in 1929. Mrs. Havemeyer is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. The terms of her will left a few choice paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The final bequest, made possible by the generosity of her children, included nearly two-thousand works that enrich nearly every segment of the museum's collections.

Many Tiffany pieces from her Fifth Avenue home, including a magnificent peacock mantelpiece decoration, and a chandelier are on permanent display at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.^[9] A portion of the Music Room furniture suite is on view at the Shelburne Museum.^[10]

Louisine's children would continue to build upon their family's legacy as art collectors. Louisine's daughter Electra Havemeyer Webb collected American fine and folk paintings and sculpture that helped to found the Shelburne Museum. The museum showcases a "collection of collections" in fine examples of early American homes and public buildings; a general store, meeting house, log cabin, and even a steamship dot the grounds. Her great-grandson, John Wilmerding, is a well known professor of art, collector, and curator, and is best known as a prolific author of books on American art.^[11] Her daughter Adaline and son Horace Havemeyer, and grandsons Horace Havemeyer, Jr. and Harry W. Havemeyer bequeathed several works from Vermeer, Goya, Corot, Manet, and others to the National Gallery of Art.^[12]

image	title	painter	date	accession number	The Met url
	Portrait of Herman Doomer	Rembrandt	1640	29.100.1	MET
	Portrait of an Old Woman	Jacob Adriaensz Backer	1640s	29.100.2	MET
	Portrait of a Man, probably a Member of the Van Beresteyn Family	Rembrandt	1632	29.100.3	MET
	Portrait of a Woman, probably a Member of the Van Beresteyn Family	Rembrandt	1632	29.100.4	MET
	Cardinal Fernando Niño de Guevara	El Greco	1600	29.100.5	MET
	View of Toledo	El Greco	1596	29.100.6	MET
	The Visit	Pieter de Hooch	1657	29.100.7	MET
	Portrait of Petrus Scriverius	Frans Hals	1626	29.100.8	MET
	Portrait of Anna van der Aar	Frans Hals	1626	29.100.9	MET
	Majas on a Balcony	Francisco de Goya	1808	29.100.10	MET
	María Luisa of Parma (1751–1819), Queen of Spain	Copy after Goya	1900s	29.100.11	MET
	A City on a Rock	Style of Goya	1900s	29.100.12	MET
	Saint Cecilia	Abraham van Diepenbeeck	1700s	29.100.14	MET
	Portrait of a Man	Hugo van der Goes		29.100.15	MET
	Portrait of a Young Man with a Book	Bronzino	1540	29.100.16	MET
	Madonna and Child with Two Angels	Botticelli	1500s	29.100.17	MET
	The Burning of Sodom	Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot	1850s	29.100.18	MET
	Bacchante by the Sea	Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot	1860 1865	29.100.19	MET
	Orpheus and Eurydice	painting in the manner of Nicolas Poussin		29.100.20	MET
	Mercury and Battus	Francisque Millet		29.100.21	MET
	Portrait of a Man	Corneille de Lyon	1540	29.100.22	MET
	Joseph-Antoine Moltedo	Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres	1810	29.100.23	MET
	Portrait of a Man with a Rosary	Lucas Cranach the Elder		29.100.24	MET
	Dancers Practicing at the Barre	Edgar Degas	1877	29.100.34	MET
	Woman Having Her Hair Combed	Edgar Degas		29.100.35	MET
	Woman Drying Her Foot	Edgar Degas		29.100.36	MET
	Woman with a Towel	Edgar Degas		29.100.37	MET
	At the Milliner's	Edgar Degas	1882	29.100.38	MET
	The Rehearsal Onstage	Edgar Degas	1874	29.100.39	MET
	The Artist's Cousin, Probably Mrs. William Bell (Mathilde Musson, 1841–1878)	Edgar Degas	1873	29.100.40	MET
	Woman Bathing in a Shallow Tub	Edgar Degas	1885	29.100.41	MET
	Dancers, Pink and Green	Edgar Degas		29.100.42	MET
	Sulking	Edgar Degas		29.100.43	MET
	The Collector of Prints	Edgar Degas	1866	29.100.44	MET
	Madame Théodore Gobillard (Yves Morisot, 1838–1893)	Edgar Degas	1869	29.100.45	MET
	A Woman Ironing	Edgar Degas	1873	29.100.46	MET
	Mother and Child (The Oval Mirror)	Mary Cassatt		29.100.47	MET
	Young Mother Sewing	Mary Cassatt	1900	29.100.48	MET
	The Dead Christ with Angels	Édouard Manet	1864	29.100.51	MET
	A Matador	Édouard Manet	1866 1867	29.100.52	MET
	Mademoiselle V. . . in the Costume of an Espada	Édouard Manet	1862	29.100.53	MET
	Young man in Mayo costume	Édouard Manet	1863	29.100.54	MET
	George Moore (1852–1933)	Édouard Manet		29.100.55	MET
	Mademoiselle Isabelle Lemonnier (1857–1926)	Édouard Manet		29.100.56	MET
	Woman with a Parrot	Gustave Courbet	1866	29.100.57	MET
	The Source	Gustave Courbet	1862	29.100.58	MET
	Woman in a Riding Habit (L'Amazone)	Gustave Courbet	1856	29.100.59	MET
	Nude with Flowering Branch	Gustave Courbet	1863	29.100.60	MET
	After the Hunt	Gustave Courbet		29.100.61	MET
	The Woman in the Waves	Gustave Courbet	1868	29.100.62	MET
	Jo, La Belle Irlandaise	Gustave Courbet		29.100.63	MET
	Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley	Paul Cézanne	1882	29.100.64	MET
	Gustave Boyer (b. 1840) in a Straw Hat	Paul Cézanne		29.100.65	MET
	Still Life with Jar, Cup, and Apples	Paul Cézanne	1877s	29.100.66	MET
	The Gulf of Marseilles Seen from L'Estaque	Paul Cézanne	1885	29.100.67	MET
	Portrait of a Man with a Breastplate and Plumed Hat	Rembrandt	1640s	29.100.102	MET
	Portrait of a Woman	Rembrandt Ferdinand Bol Jan Victors	1640s	29.100.103	MET
	Portrait of a Woman	Francesco Montemezzano		29.100.104	MET
	Boy with a Greyhound	Paolo Veronese		29.100.105	MET
	Chrysanthemums	Claude Monet	1882	29.100.106	MET
	Bouquet of Sunflowers	Claude Monet	1881	29.100.107	MET
	Ice Floes	Claude Monet	1893	29.100.108	MET
	Haystacks (Effect of Snow and Sun)	Claude Monet	1891	29.100.109	MET
	The Four Trees	Claude Monet	1891	29.100.110	MET
	The Green Wave	Claude Monet		29.100.111	MET
	La Grenouillère	Claude Monet	1869	29.100.112	MET
	Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies	Claude Monet	1899	29.100.113	MET
	Copy after Delacroix's "Bark of Dante"	Édouard Manet		29.100.114	MET
	Boating	Édouard Manet	1874	29.100.115	MET
	The Allegory of the Sorbonne	Pierre Puvis de Chavannes	1889	29.100.117	MET
	Madame de Brayer	Gustave Courbet	1858	29.100.118	MET
	Portrait of a Woman, Called Héloïse Abélard	Style of Gustave Courbet	1900s	29.100.119	MET
	Charles Suisse	Gustave Courbet	1861	29.100.120	MET
	Spring Flowers	Copy after Gustave Courbet	1855	29.100.121	MET
	The Source of the Loue	Gustave Courbet	1864	29.100.122	MET
	Apples	painting in the style of Gustave Courbet	1900s	29.100.123	MET
	The Young Bather	Gustave Courbet	1866	29.100.124	MET
	By the Seashore	Pierre-Auguste Renoir	1883	29.100.125	MET
	Bather in the Woods	Camille Pissarro	1895	29.100.126	MET
	Dancers in the Rehearsal Room with a Double Bass	Edgar Degas		29.100.127	MET
	A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers	Edgar Degas	1865	29.100.128	MET
	The Third-Class Carriage	Honoré Daumier	1862	29.100.129	MET
	Madame Auguste Cuoq (Mathilde Desportes, 1827–1910)	Gustave Courbet		29.100.130	MET
	Christ Asleep during the Tempest	Eugène Delacroix		29.100.131	MET
	Alphonse Promayet (1822–1872)	Gustave Courbet	1851	29.100.132	MET
	Portrait of a Man	Gaspare Traversi	1800s	29.100.179	MET
	Narcisa Barañana de Goicoechea	Francisco de Goya y Lucientes	1815	29.100.180	MET
	Joseph-Henri Altès (1826–1895)	Edgar Degas	1868	29.100.181	MET
	Marie Dihau (1843–1935)	Edgar Degas		29.100.182	MET
	Portrait of a Young Woman	Edgar Degas		29.100.183	MET
	The Dancing Class	Edgar Degas	1870s	29.100.184	MET
	Woman on a Sofa	Edgar Degas	1875	29.100.185	MET
	Two Dancers	Edgar Degas	1873	29.100.187	MET
	Dancer with a Fan	Edgar Degas		29.100.188	MET
	Two Dancers	Edgar Degas		29.100.189	MET
	Bather Stepping into a Tub	Edgar Degas		29.100.190	MET
	The Muse: History	Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot	1865	29.100.193	MET
	Rocks in the Forest	Paul Cézanne		29.100.194	MET
	The Experts	Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps	1837	29.100.196	MET
	Anne de Pisseleu (1508–1576), Duchesse d'Étampes	Corneille de Lyon		29.100.197	MET
	Man with a Tankard	Style of Adriaen van Ostade	1700s	29.100.198	MET
	The Connoisseur	Honoré Daumier	1862s	29.100.200	MET
	Portrait of a Man	Gustave Courbet		29.100.201	MET
	The Ballet from "Robert le Diable"	Edgar Degas	1871	29.100.552	MET
	Woman Drying Her Arm	Edgar Degas		29.100.553	MET
	Fan Mount: The Ballet	Edgar Degas	1879	29.100.554	MET
	Fan Mount: Ballet Girls	Edgar Degas	1879	29.100.555	MET
	Russian Dancer	Edgar Degas	1899	29.100.556	MET
	Dancer with a Fan	Edgar Degas		29.100.557	MET
	Three Dancers Preparing for Class	Edgar Degas		29.100.558	MET
	Mademoiselle Lucie Delabigne (1859–1910), Called Valtesse de la Bigne	Édouard Manet	1879	29.100.561	MET
	Girl Weaving a Garland	Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot		29.100.562	MET
	Reverie	Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot		29.100.563	MET
	Portrait of a Child	Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot		29.100.564	MET
	Sibylle	Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot	1870s	29.100.565	MET
	The Calm Sea	Gustave Courbet	1869	29.100.566	MET
	Bacchante in a Landscape	Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot	1865	29.100.598	MET

• Havemeyer

• Louisine Havemeyer.1993. Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector. New York: Ursus Press. ISBN 978-1-883145-00-2
• Louisine W. Havemeyer. 1922. The Suffrage Torch: Memories of a Militant Scribners (May), pp. 528–538.
• Louisine W. Havemeyer. 1922. The Prison Special: Memories of a Militant Scribners (June) pp. 661–675.
• Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen. 1993. Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0-8109-6426-6

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Louisine Havemeyer.

• Havemeyer Collection: Magic at the Met Museum review of an art exhibit in the March 23, 1993 issue of the New York Times
• Louisine Elder Havemeyer Archived 2006-03-27 at the Wayback Machine profile from Saint Michaels College
• Louisine Havemeyer at Find a Grave
• The Havemeyer Family Papers relating to Art Collecting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives.
• Archives directory, Frick Collection (February 20920)
• Online edition of Frits Lugt's Les marques de collections de dessins & d'estampes
• The H. O. Havemeyer Collection, a collection catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries
• Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection, from Google Books