The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Kindred Spirits, Asher B. Durand, 1849
One of Alice Walton's most publicized purchases was this famous example from the Hudson River School of 19th century landscape painters. She bought it from the New York Public Library for a reported $35 million. It shows the poet William Cullen Bryant, at left, taking in a dramatic view with his friend Thomas Cole, the prominent American landscape painter who had died suddenly the year before.

• Review of the Crystal Bridges Museum