Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection

The fabulous Havemeyer Collection of Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art is sampled in this exhibition catalog. Coupling 800 plates (176 in color) with informative essays by a team of 27 scholars led by exhibition co-curators Frelinghuysen and Tinterow, the album includes works by Rembrandt, El Greco, Veronese, Cranach, Bronzino, Daumier and Courbet, plus impressionist masterpieces by Corot, Manet, Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, Degas and Mary Cassatt. That Louisine Havemeyer (1855-1929), husband Henry (1847-1907) and their family possessed broad taste in Asian arts is evident in objects ranging from Japanese woodblock prints to a Korean hanging scroll. Their eclectic passion for the decorative arts is also on display in Egyptian sculpture, Islamic painting and pottery, Venetian glass, Italian majolica and Tiffany glass and flatware. (Sept.)