Electra Havemeyer Webb

Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960) was a collector of American antiques and founder of the Shelburne Museum.

Family

Her father, Henry O. Havemeyer, was a wealthy industrialist who used the tremendous profits from his sugar trust to amass a superb collection of European, Ancient, and Asian art. Webb's mother, Louisine Elder Havemeyer, was a young student in Paris when Mary Cassat advised her to buy the radical new works of Degas and Monet. Together the Havemeyers filled a three story NYC manse, the interiors of which were designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Samuel Colman, with their expansive collections. Nearly two-thousand works from this collection, including major works by El Greco and Manet, were given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Electra Havemeyer married an heir to the Vanderbilt family fortune, James Watson Webb, in an elaborate society wedding at St. James Episcopal Church in 1910. Electra's in-laws, Dr. William Seward Webb and Lila Vanderbilt Webb had transformed a collection of rambling lakeside farms on the shore of Vermont's Lake Champlain into a model country estate. The core of property, the Shelburne Farms, survives today as a nonprofit foundation dedicated to fostering innovative agricultural practices. Recalling her fist visit to the Webb estate as a young girl Webb declared "I felt as though I was in dreamland," she was smitten by the beauty of Vermont's Champlain Valley. On the Webb estate she enjoyed horseback riding, the one-hundred and thirteen foot steam yacht, and one of America's first private eighteen hole golf courses. The pastoral landscape and lush grounds of Shelburne Farms would be replicated at Electra Havemeyer Webb's museum. The Shelburne is well known for its fine collection of lilacs, peonies, and New England perennials.

Collector

Although she spent her youth among the finest examples of European and Asian material culture, Electra Havemeyer Webb's own collecting took a radical turn. Although she lived with more than twenty extremely fine Impressionist works from her parents collection in a penthouse at 740 Park Avenue during part of the year, she decorated a small pink farmhouse on a thousand acre portion of her in-laws estate with the simple New England furniture and craftwork. Quilts, tiger maple furniture, and hooked rugs filled the homey rooms of her country house. Although a woman of tremendous means, Webb's Vermont home was modest and comfortable in scale. Her "Brick House" survives today as a rare and intact example of the Colonial Revival, providing an intimate glimpse into the life of a pioneer collector of America and founder of the Shelburne Museum. It is open to the public by reservation for guided tours during the summer months.

The Shelburne Museum

The closing of one of the Webb's other homes, this one near the polo grounds at Old Westbury, unintentionally birthed a museum. The question of what would become of her cigar store Indians, hunting decoys, and weather vanes had to be settled. In 1947 Electra Havemeyer Webb gathered with her friends to create the Shelburne Museum. Located just off route seven in picturesque Shelburne, Vermont, Webb's museum quickly became a haven for the handmade objects of another era. A two hundred year old tavern shelters one of the finest collections of weathervanes, trade signs, and primitive portraits on the continent. A rambling old farmhouse is filled with spectacular assemblages of mochaware, pewter, and staffordshire. The finest collection of carriages and sleighs in North America rests in a unique horseshoe barn. Period homes, filled with outstanding collections of early American furniture and accessories, dot the grounds.

Rather than confine her eclectic collections to a single modern gallery, Webb chose to create an institution that would showcase her "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. The entire museum reflects Electra Webb's passion for American art and design, she treasured a stunning variety of objects. Five rooms from her Park Avenue apartment were installed in a memorial building after her untimely death in 1960, bringing Webb's collection of works by Monet, Manet, and Degas to the museum grounds. A large pastel by Mary Cassatt, showing a young Electra Havemeyer with her mother Louisine, enjoys a place of honor in the entry hall.

Electra Havemeyer Webb began to collect "in earnest" in 1911, more than a decade before the founding of Colonial Williamsburg and nearly a half century before authentic American antiques would return to the major rooms of the White House. When she began to gather the remnants of an earlier America there was no National Register of Historic Places. Americans had yet to understand that their heritage was interesting and worthy of preservation. Before there was Henry Francis Dupont's Winterthur, Henry Ford's Greenfield Village, or even the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Electra Havemeyer Webb was an ambitious and well-known collector of Americana. She worked with the finest antique dealers of the era, including Edith Halpert and Harry Newman, to assemble encyclopedic and irreplaceable collections of American material culture. The honesty of everyday objects spoke to Mrs. Webb, and she used her significant resources to ensure their preservation. Today the museum's Americana collection is one of the world's finest.

The Shelburne Museum today

Members of the Webb family remain very much involved in the museum's operations and that of other important institutions. Of particular note is John Wilmerding, a grandson of the founder who teaches art history at Princeton University and is considered to be one of the finest art historians in the country. He is presently engaged in building a world-class collection of American paintings with the Walton family of Arkansas. The collecting tradition began by Wilmerding's great-grandparents continues. Wilmerding's late uncle, James Watson Webb Jr., was president of the museum of 17 years and chairman of the board into the 1990s. An Oscar nominated film editor at 20th Century Fox, Watson Webb's generosity enabled the museum to acquire the Brick House. The Shelburne Museum hosted an innovative exhibition of Shaker design during the 2007 season in addition to mounting more than seven new exhibitions. Major renovations are underway in three museum galleries. Future seasons will include exhibitions of the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany, Mary Cassatt, and Vermont furniture. The museum remains an eclectic and vibrant reflection of its founder.

External links

* [http://academics.smcvt.edu/shelburnemuseum/sestey/Electra%20Havemeyer%20Webb.htm Electra Havemeyer Webb Biography] in "The Influences Behind the Shelburne Museum" at [http://academics.smcvt.edu/ Academics Content Server at Saint Michael's College]
* [http://www.vermontwoman.com/articles/0504/brick_house.html "Electra's Cultural Jewel at Shelburne Museum"] in [http://www.vermontwoman.com/ Vermont Woman Magazine] , 2004
* [http://www.boston.com/travel/articles/2004/09/12/collectors_gene_yields_a_trove_of_americana_electra/ 'Collector's gene' yields a trove of Americana: Electra Webb made Shelburne Museum her monument] in [http://www.boston.com The Boston Globe]