The Monet is rather un-Monet, being a dramatic landscape that’s more German Romantic than his usual, The Degas is Jockeys before a Race with the scene dramatically sliced in two by the starting post; it’s a curious but effective mixture of oils, thinned down, and pastel on paper. And then there’s Whistler’s Symphony in White III, a white backdrop for his Irish mistress, Joanna Hiffernan, with her red hair, lounging meditatively.
