Leaving an \u201CImpression\u201D on Art in America The Havemeyers of Greenwich

By Anne W. Semmes / Images courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Greenwich Historical Society

“It was so new and strange to me! I scarcely knew how to appreciate it, or whether I liked it or not,” is how 22-year-old Louisine Elder, destined to marry the Sugar King, Harry O. Havemeyer, reacted to the recommendation from artist friend, Mary Cassatt that she purchase the Edgar Degas pastel the “Ballet Rehearsal.” The year was 1877.

Louisine’s purchase was made in Paris for $100, with a loan from her two sisters, making Louisine Degas’s first American patron. With the death of Louisine Havemeyer, age 74, (her husband died in 1907), came her bequest to the Metropolitan Museum of Art of the astounding 2,000 objects of art in the H. O. Havemeyer Collection. “One of the most magnificent gifts of works of art ever made to a museum by a single individual,” is how Laura Corey, a specialist in Impressionism, related the reaction of the director of the Met at that time.

Corey, Research Associate in European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, spoke recently before a Greenwich Art Society audience in Greenwich, former hometown of the Havemeyers, to tell the story of “The Extraordinary HavemeyerCollection: from the Occident to the Orient and from Clouet to Cezanne.”

“There are now over 4,000 objects in nearly every Department of the Metropolitan from the H.O. Havemeyer Collection,” said Corey, but what resonated was, “The Havemeyer Collection is known best for its Impressionist paintings.”

That pioneer collection of French Impressionist paintings with Louisine’s early enthusiasm, mentored as she was by Paris-based Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, would continue through the years Louisine and Harry Havemeyer lived in “Hilltop,”a house they built in 1890 atop Palmer Hill in Greenwich. The family divided their time between “Hilltop” and their New York home at 1 East 66th Street.

Edgar Degas, “Rehearsal of the Ballet” 1876 - The Metropolitan Museum ofArt, New York., H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O.Havemeyer, 1929

The H.O. Havemeyer home, "Hilltop" in Greenwich that was located on Palmer Hill - Courtesy of The Greenwich Historiacl Society

Edouard Manet, “The Grand Canal Venice” 1875 - The Metropolitan Museumof Art, New York., H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O.Havemeyer, 1929

Cezanne, “Winter Landscape with Viaduct” 1882 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York., H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Manet, “Boating” 1874 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York., H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Edgar Degas, “Self-Portrait”

Edgar Degas, “Woman Bathing in a Shallow Tub” 1885 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York., H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Monet, “The Drawbridge, Amsterdam” 1874 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York., H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Claude Monet, “Bouquet of Sunflowers” - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York., H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

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Edgar Degas, “Dancers, Pink and Green” 1890 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York., H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

And this kind of foursome of Durand-Ruel, Cassatt, Harry, and Louisine join forces and make the huge impact on exporting Impressionism to America.”

The couple committed to meeting the artists. “Degas tenderly lifted drawings and showed them to us,” Corey quoted Louisine. “We could see how greatly he prized them. Mr. Havemeyer requested to Degas to let him have some of them, but he seemed reluctant to give them up.”

Mary Cassatt, “Louisine Havemeyer” 1896 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York., H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Degas would become “the most important artist” in the Havemeyer collection. “They had over 60 paintings, drawings, pastels, and fans, a full set of all 70 bronzes, and almost countless prints,” noted Corey. “So not only were they the first American collectors of Degas, but even including French collectors, really the most impressive.”

Their next door neighbor in New York showed how the Havemeyers collecting taste impacted others. “His name was Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne,” noted Corey, “He fought in the Civil War ultimately at the rank of Brigadier General.” Introduced to Impressionism by the Havemeyers, the wealthy Payne would purchase an “incredible work of art by Degas, another ‘Ballet Rehearsal’…but they almost regretted giving it to him because it's such a great one.”

Edouard Manet, “The 'Kearsarge' at Boulogne” 1864 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Individual Gifts - 1999

Payne would likely have enjoyed the purchase the Havemeyers would make of Manet’s Civil War era marine painting, “The Kearsarge at Boulogne.” Manet painted it in 1865 soon after the famed Confederate cruiser, the “Alabama,” was sunk by the Union ship, “Kearsarge” off the coast of Cherbourg, France. The Havemeyers’ subsequent purchase of Monet’s “The Green Wave,” was said to have been inspired by Manet’s painting. These two paintings starred in an exhibit at the Met, “Manet and the American Civil War,” that cited the pair as having “paved the way for a new kind of painting…Impressionism.”

But those two purchases came after Louisine introduced her husband Harry to Mary Cassatt in Paris in 1889, six years after their marriage and after having borne three children. “It’s the year of the World’s Fair that debuts the Eiffel Tower,” said Corey. “They see these major exhibitions. They're led by two major figures, Mary Cassatt and Paul Durand-Ruel, who is the main dealer for the Impressionists.

Degas’s bronze sculpture of “The Fourteen- Year-Old Dancer” is world famous. But not for Louisine Havemeyer and Mary Cassatt, it might

Edgar Degas "The Little Fourteen Year Old Dancer" 1880 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York., H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave, ca. 1830.32 - - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York., H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

not exist. Originally a wax figure as exhibited by Degas, “dressed in a tutu with hair with ribbon,” it was considered “vulgar;” thus Degas kept it in his studio, related Corey. Seeing its deterioration, the two women encouraged Degas to “fix it up” unsuccessfully. After Degas’s death, this, and other of his wax sculptures, were cast in bronze with Louisine obtaining “the first full set.”

All those years before Louisine and Harry got together, Harry had collected Dutch masters and much Asian art. The 300 Japanese color woodblock prints are cited “as the best of the Havemeyer Asian Collection,” which includes that famous Hokusai color woodblock, “The Great Wave at Kanagawa.” Cassatt and other French Impressionists were also Japanese print collectors. “Many, many of these artists were inspired by Japanese prints,” noted Corey.

Surely, as the Havemeyers’ collection grew with its French Impressionist acquisitions making the headlines, so must have the inspiration with those Connecticut artists who were shaping American Impressionism in a lively art colony in Cos Cob. From 1890 to 1920 they were living and working not far from the Havemeyers, simultaneously with an art colony in Old Lyme.

The Havemeyers footprint in Greenwich is large – it includes a Havemeyer School, now the Havemeyer Building that houses the Town’s School District, Havemeyer Lane, Havemeyer Field, and Havemeyer Place. But perhaps most impressive in size is what became of the 200-acre property of the Havemeyer Hilltop estate.

It was not until 1946 that the Havemeyer heirs sold off the property to former heavyweight boxing champion and real estate developer, Gene Tunney, whose wife Polly Lauder was the granddaughter of a former business partner of Andrew Carnegie, and who lived in another Greenwich “house on a hill” i.e. “Tighnabruaich” (Gaelic). Tunney, a WWII veteran, developed Havemeyer Park, with housing affordable for his fellow veterans and streets appropriately named for its war heroes.

Meanwhile, the Havemeyer family art collecting legacy continues. Louisine and Harry’s three children, Horace, Adaline, and Electra would collect, with Electra creating her own Shelburne Museum south of Burlington, Vermont, housing not only Manets, Monet, and Cassatt, but primarily Americana.

Electra Havemeyer was particularly inspired by this spoken legacy of her mother Louisine:

“Children, remember how blessed you are, and if the opportunity ever offers, equalize the sum of human happiness, and share the sunshine that you have inherited.”