Old Masters, Newly Acquired, opening today at the Morgan Library and Museum, allows visitors to compare the eye of connoisseur collectors side by side. Jennifer Tonkovich, exhibition curator, said she “wanted to let people know the collectors behind the collections,” organizing works into groups of donations by former Morgan Director Charles Ryskamp, Brooke Astor, Joseph McCrindle and Eugene Thaw as well as gifts of individual drawings and recent museum purchases.

Out of the one-hundred-plus works on display, Eugene Thaw’s collection, which ranges from an early Renaissance sheet by Pisanello’s workshop to a late-Cezanne watercolor, is the largest. Standouts from Mr. Thaw’s collection include a family portrait by Ingres, a delicately shaded pencil drawing depicting a seated mother interlacing hands with her two daughters, a horse drawn in profile by Seurat and an excellent watercolor by Daumier, The School Master and the Drowning Child. Illustrating a story by 17th century fabulist Jean de La Fontaine, Daumier depicts a young boy thrashing in the water, desperately grabbing at a branch, while a schoolmaster on shore looks down his nose and lectures.

According to Ms. Tonkovich, Charles Ryskamp was an avid collector whose drawings covered “nearly every inch of every wall” of his New York City apartment. In tribute, Ryskamp’s collection, focusing on Northern European works, particularly pieces from “The Danish Golden Age,” is displayed salon style. Notable works include Apples and a Walnut, by Hendrik Reekers, a hyper-realist page of apple studies, two beautiful graphite drawings with shimmering tones by Adolph Menzel and a drawing by Adolphe-Gustave Binet documenting the construction of the Eifel Tower, drawn from inside the structure, looking up, negative spaces between a web of ironwork painted in white gouache.

Rounding out the show are a number of Romantic British watercolor landscapes acquired through the Sunny Crawford von Bülow Fund, including two scenes by Samuel Palmer, a handful of drawings from Brooke Astor’s collection and some individual gifts, including a lively watercolor by Jacopo Ligozzi, the Renaissance artist celebrated for his flora and fauna studies, here showing a poisonous white swallowwort.

Largely funded by friends of Mr. Ryskamp, this exhibition is designed to pay homage to generous patrons. It does that and more. Many of the pieces here are exceptionally good as stand-alone artworks and in the aggregate they provide a rare view of the differing tastes of the drawing aficionados whose collections are on display.

Old Masters, Newly Acquired, May 31 – August 11, 2013, The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 212.685.0008, themorgan.org

More information about Xico Greenwald’s work can be found at xicogreenwald.com