Lovers of French Impressionists are drawn to Hill-Stead (I-84, exit 39), a scenic 152-acre hilltop estate and former working farm in Farmington. It's a National Historic Landmark with masterpieces by Cassatt, Degas, Manet, Monet and Whistler. The 1901 Colonial Revival house offers tours of its 19 intact, antiques-filled period rooms decorated with Chinese porcelains and Japanese woodblock prints. In June, the 26th Annual Farmington Antiques Weekend at the Farmington Polo Club and Show Grounds hosts about 400 dealers in the largest antiques event in the state.

In Hartford (I-84 east, exit 48-B) the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is America's first, and still one of its most impressive, public art museums. Its American decorative arts collection excels in American furniture with pieces by Connecticut's best colonial cabinetmaker Eliphalet Chapin (1741-1807) and Colchester/Norwich-style furniture by Samuel Loomis (1748-1814). In addition to Old Masters (such as Caravaggio), 19th-century French and Impressionist paintings, modern masterpieces and contemporary art, the scope of its Hudson River School landscapes is world-renowned. Until December 31, “Dalí, Picasso and the Surrealist Vision” displays paintings by leading surrealists, including Ernst and Tanguy.

The Connecticut Historical Society Museum, less than two miles from the Wadsworth Atheneum, gathered important pieces of furnishings made during Connecticut's golden age of furniture production for “Connecticut Valley Furniture by Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries, 1750-1800,” which is on view until January 15. A similarly named landmark reference book, Connecticut Valley Furniture: Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries, 1750-1800, is being published by the museum (November 2005) and distributed by the University Press of New England. “One of the most exciting results of the exhibition for both collectors and scholars is that it provides a framework to trace specific Connecticut furniture to particular places at particular times,” says Susan Schoelwer, director of museum collections.

On the coast, Old Lyme (I-95, exit 70) is the best known of the American Impressionist art colonies in Connecticut. (From Hartford, take Route 9 to I-95 or from Putnam via I-395.) The Lyme Art Colony flourished in the early 1900s in Florence Griswold's boardinghouse where the group of plein-air painters-Hassam, Metcalf and Henry Ward Ranger, as well as Woodrow Wilson and his wife, the painter Ellen Axson Wilson-called what is now the Florence Griswold Museum the “Holy House.” While the original house is being restored (until summer 2006), the exhibit is on view in the Krieble Gallery until May 28. “The 'Holy House': Spirit of a Place” features the museum's newest and most important acquisition: “Autumn Landscape with Stream,” 1902, by Lewis Cohen. Originally this painting was a gift from the artist, who inscribed it: “To my friend Miss Florence Griswold.” Lyme Street, also in the historic district, is home to the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts and Lyme Art Association, plus some galleries and antiques stores.