Soon after Americans began earnestly to collect and emulate European art, the French Impressionists made their debut in a private exhibition in Paris in 1874 they would show together eight times in all, until 1886. To appeal to prospective patrons, aspiring American artists studied in Europe, especially Paris.
To announce their wealth and sophistication, they built grand houses and filled them with imported decorative arts and paintings by old masters and contemporary academics. American art patrons-notably Northerners who had made fortunes from the war-traveled abroad and imbibed European culture. After the end of the Civil War in 1865, the United States gained unprecedented international political and economic status.
