Samuel Putnam Avery
Copper and wood engraver, art dealer, connoisseur and advisor to important collectors. Eventually Avery gave up commercial engraving and devoted himself exclusively to collecting and dealing art; particular specialty being old Dutch paintings and romantic French landscape painters. A founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, many of the paintings in that collection were selected by him. He gave notable collections of architectural books to Columbia University, and of engravings and etchings to the New York Public Library.
