The paintings at Hill-Stead reflect their collector’s personal aesthetic at the end of the 19th century. Masterpieces by Edgar Degas and Claude Monet make the collection one of the most significant in the United States today. Combined with notable works by Mary Cassatt and James McNeill Whistler, these paintings reflect Alfred Pope’s distinguishing taste for what was new and fresh and moved him. Pope also acquired paintings by such mainstream artists as Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Eugène Carrière, whose paintings were widely collected in the 1880s and 1890s.