Louisine W. Havemeyer (1855–1929)

Louisine Waldron Elder was the daughter of a prosperous New York merchant family. She was educated at a boarding school in Paris, where she met Emily Sartain. Emily introduced her to 30-year-old artist Mary Cassatt, and the two women became lifelong friends. In 1883, Louisine married Henry O. Havemeyer of the American Sugar Refining Company, with whom she had three children. Louisine Havemeyer and her husband began to buy art, advised by Mary Cassatt. Eventually, they built the finest private art collection in the USA, including works by Old Masters and many modern French artists such as Impressionists. The Havemeyer mansion on Fifth Avenue was decorated by Louis Comfort Tiffany, who made it an elegant showplace for his patrons' collections. After her husband's death in 1907, Mrs. Havemeyer became a well-known suffragist and helped Alice Paul found the National Woman's Party to campaign for votes for women. She participated in public marches and went on a nationwide lecture tour. After her death, nearly 2,000 works of art were bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Many of her Tiffany pieces are on permanent display at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Louisine Havemeyer wrote Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector, published in 1993.