A trustee leaves trove of Old Masters works to the Met

Johannes Vermeer’s “Study of a Young Woman.” Peter Paul Rubens’ self-portrait with his family. Jacques Louis David’s portrait of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier and his wife. These paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection were made possible in part by the generosity of the longtime donor and trustee Jayne Wrightsman, who died in April at age 99. Now, it turns out, Wrightsman decided to continue that largesse after her death. On Wednesday, the museum announced that the arts benefactor and grande dame of New York society has left more than 375 works to the Met in a bequest that includes gifts to the departments of Drawings and Prints, European Paintings, and European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, as well as to the Department of Asian Art, the Department of Islamic Art and the Watson Library. “The Wrightsman bequest is the culmination of a half century of giving that has transformed the collection of Old Mas