For much of today's public the art of the late 19th century connotes impressionism, an art of the open air and the café-concert, invoking the pleasure of the landscape and the city with its many entertainments. But there is another side to the story—the discreet world of individual collecting in which prints, drawings, and small sculpture were kept aside in portfolios or stored away in cabinets. Organized around the city centers of Paris, London, and Berlin, the exhibition will include more than 100 works—mainly prints, but also drawings, illustrated books, and small sculpture—from the Gallery's extensive collections that reveal the romantic sensibilities of the arts of privacy. Here the experience of art was a private affair, like taking a book down from the shelf for quiet enjoyment. The arts of privacy encouraged the expression of darker thoughts and moody reflections—a milieu that recruited the talents of academics, realists, impressionists, and symbolists.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an unprecedented catalogue on the study of the nature of the private aesthetic experience in 19th-century collecting.

Organization: Organized by the National Gallery of Art.

Schedule: Hammer Museum, Los Angeles—April 5–June 28, 2009; National Gallery of Art, Washington—October 1, 2009–January 18, 2010; Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago—February 11–June 10, 2010

Passes: Passes are not required for this exhibition.

The exhibition will be on view in the National Gallery's West Building, Ground Floor.