The Impressionists at Their Peak: the Met's Crown Jewels

Between 1870 and 1900, a group of painters in France dismantled the Western pictorial tradition that had been in place since the Renaissance — and built something new in its place. They replaced finish with gesture, narrative with moment, studio light with the light of actual afternoons in actual gardens. The Met's collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist work is one of the finest in the world, built largely through the extraordinary philanthropy of Louisine Havemeyer, who bought these paintings when they were still considered radical. Many of these works were purchased directly from the artists' dealers in Paris in the 1870s and 1880s.