Stebbins Collection from Morse Museum in Winter Park, FL

View of Rome and the Coliseum (sic), John Linton Chapman, ca. 1860; the Stebbins Collection features paintings from America's Gilded Age, a generally optimistic period, when huge fortunes were made and great mansions and art collections built

Vegetables on a White Tablecloth, William Oscar Roelecke, 1889; the Stebbins Collection wasn't very broad, covering just a few decades, but did have depth, especially with still-lifes which I appreciate

Apple Blossoms, William M. Davis, ca. 1862; Theodore Stebbins Jr was the Curator of American Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston for decades; he was college roommates with future Senator John Heinz III at Yale

Arcadia, Thomas Eakins, 1883; this work ranks as Eakins sculptural masterpiece, and it was his own favorite sculpture; Eakins's finished sculptures were done in relief representing the artist's merging of painting and sculpture

Citrus Fruits, James H. Cafferty, ca. 1850s; the realism depicted here was almost certainly due to creative license since citrus, at this time, had to travel from the Mediterranean; citrus from Florida would not begin until the turn of the 20th century

Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac, Alfred R. Waud, ca. 1863-64; Waud was one of only two artists present at the Battle of Gettysburg with his depiction of Pickett's Charge thought to be the only visual account by an eyewitness

Cherries, Joseph Decker, 1886; the Stebbins Collection amassed a wealth of realistic fruit still-lifes at a time when European painters were adopting the Impressionist style and embracing landscape painting

Mixed Flowers in a White Vase, Martin Johnson Heade, 1861; this painting appears very realistic but that's just the artist's interpretation since he has included flowers from Malaysia and Europe that, at this time, could not be alive together

Cyrus, Frederic Edwin Church, 1883; this master of romantic landscapes from around the world takes on a more domestic subject here, the family pet; you sometimes see dogs in paintings of this era but seldom a cat

An Orange with Strawberries and Currants on a Table, Paul Lacroix, ca. 1860s; the pyramidal arrangement of the fruit recalls the still-life compositions of Raphaelle Peale and the other painters of his family

Master Draper, Ignaz Gaugengigl, ca. 1907-09; this Bavarian-born artist emigrated to Boston where he primarily painted portraits of the wealthy Boston Brahmins and their families

Red Plums, Purple Plums, Levi Wells Prentice, ca. 1890s; this is one of Prentice's largest and most beautifully handled works, in which there is little evidence of his self-taught beginnings

Calla Lilies, George Cochran Lambdin, 1874; widely regarded as one of Lambdin's masterpieces, this is a work of heightened realism, devoid of context and background to amplify the stoic beauty of the subject matter

Apples and Plums, John William Hill, 1874; this incredible painting was created with translucent watercolors, not oils as you might think; the artist created textures through a stippling and hatching technique

Hanging Bunch of Grapes, Morston Constantine Ream, 1880; this is a unique work in the artist's oeuvre since his typical compositions were tightly detailed pictures of fruit, wine glasses and the like on tabletops, in the Dutch tradition