But for more casual viewers, it is the handful of first-rate paintings that will be most captivating.

The sacristy also displays first-rate paintings by Goya, Titian, and Velázquez.

It's neither ground-breaking nor definitive, but it is a handsome survey that touches all the bases and includes some first-rate paintings among the mixed bag of nearly 100 works on view.

It is the arena for first-rate (and pricey) paintings, antique furniture, antiquities, clocks, arms and armor, carpets and jewelry, with 90 exhibitors from six countries, all vetted by the British Antique Dealers' Association.

A first-rate painting by Perle Fine demonstrates an interest in creating a more lyrical abstraction, and one by Irene Rice Pereira reveals original research into schematic geometrics.

Between them, the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and the Met can bring forward first-rate paintings that will support almost any rational attitude to French Impressionism.

The show is an inevitable reminder that the Guggenheim sold first-rate paintings to buy these works several years ago from Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, works that the museum doesn't have room in New York to keep on view.

Meanwhile, the museum has been buying first-rate paintings by Rembrandt, Monet, Gericault and others.

"While it may seem like a lot of money, it's relatively cheap compared to a first-rate Impressionist painting."

It is true that in the late 1980's, when museums tried to capitalize on a booming market, they sold some first-rate paintings, setting off, appropriately, an uproar.