HAVEMEYER, Charles Frederick (Carley)

Charles (Carley) Havemeyer (1867-1898) was the son of Mr. & Mrs. Theodore Havemeyer, and brother of H.O. Havemeyer Sr., and Mrs. Perry Tiffany (Emily Havemeyer).

This portrait was posthumously executed for Mrs. Theodore Havemeyer according to the New York World, January 11, 1899, the unstated reason being that he committed suicide at Roslyn, Long Island, in 1898 (as mentioned in a letter from Muller-Ury, who was in London, to James J. Hill, June 13, 1898, Hill Papers, St. Paul, MN). On May 9, 1898, just ten minutes after playing with his son Teddy and while dressing for dinner, Havemeyer died from a gunshot wound to the head from a pistol at his home in Roslyn; he was 31. Suicide was never established, or whether it was an accident, and although it was commonly believed to be intentional suicide, no motive was ever determined. The diary of Eva Purdy Thomson in ‘The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera’ at the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE  19735, has a relevant entry for Tuesday May 10, 1898, ‘Poor Carli Havemeyer, poor unhappy man. He had an interview with his mother, who being Catholic, refused consent to his getting a divorce, & his vain wife refused to take a separation, & the man is sacrificed between the wife and mother. They dined here a few evenings ago, & one hardly then realized the tragedy before them. All New York is absorbed with the tragic death and can talk of nothing else.’

After his death, in December 1898, his widow gave birth to a second son, who she named after Charles. On 29 November 1899 she married broker Frederick Ogden Beach Sr. (William K. Vanderbilt was best man), who was known as “Beauty Beach” for his good looks, with whom she had two more sons. Later in February 1912, Camilla had her throat slashed at her Aiken home. Much to the surprise of both Camilla and Frederick, Beach was charged for attempted murder, although he was later acquitted.

According to the New York Times for October 13, 1899, Muller-Ury had painted the portraits of Carley Havemeyer’s children, Theodore A. Havemeyer III and Charles Frederick Havemeyer, but no other evidence documents their portraits.