GREENWICH, CONN. - If you ever thought it would take a lifetime to put together a meaningful art collection, think again. The exhibition unveiled at the Bruce Museum which runs through December 5 features 70 works of art, representing less than half of an exquisite collection amassed by a Greenwich couple in just three and a half years.

The exhibition, "Elegance and Opulence: Art of the Gilded Age," is a sumptuous visual feast of art which was created at the height of the French Salon and the Royal Academy during the Gilded Age, and includes paintings, works on paper and sculpture by prominent artists such as Bouguereau, Gerome, Tissot, Lord Leighton, and Alma-Tadema, among others.

Mark Twain named the "Gilded Age" to describe a time after the Civil War when United States Industrialists were using their incredible wealth to furnish lavish homes. The age includes much of the Victorian Era (1837 to 1901). Many of the pieces have never before been seen in the United States. Others were formerly in the collections of famous American Industrialists. William Vanderbilt once owned "Le Salon de Peinture" by Alfred Stevens; and "Voltaire's Last Visit to Paris" by Maurice Leloir formerly belonged to William Astor. Both paintings are in the exhibition.

The current owners, who wish to remain anonymous, had many experts on the lookout for fine examples of academic art; notably Dr Vern Swanson, director of the Springville Museum in Springville, Utah. While many dealers and scholars aided the buyers, it was Swanson who was chiefly responsible for assisting the collectors in their pursuit of significant quarry. The Bruce Museum will be the only venue for the exhibition, which runs through December 5, when, as Hollister Sturges, executive director of the Bruce Museum and curator for the show, quipped, "They will want their art back."

No doubt the collectors will take a leisurely stroll or two through the museum to see the show in all of its luster before it comes down. The art is marvelously displayed on vivid red walls trimmed in gold crown moldings. Each segment of the exhibition is displayed in an intimate space, as if you were in a well-appointed Victorian parlor sans furniture. Dan Buckley, a Victorian art scholar, designed the exhibition presentation. Only the few black and white photographs in the exhibit are displayed differently, with white walls rather than red. The richness of the presentation is logical for art that comes from a time when fortunes were being made and enjoyed without reservation.

The Bruce Museum has dedicated both the Love and Newman-Wilds Galleries to the exhibition, and those galleries could only accommodate half of the collection. "We took all we could hold," said Sturges, who had the privilege of curating the show. The Bruce exhibition includes work from 31 predominantly French and British artists from the late Nineteenth Century and early Twentieth Century including six knights: Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Sir John Everett Millais, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Edward James (or John Poynter), Sir George Clausen, and Sir James Jebusa Shannon.

Independent historian of Nineteenth Century European art Jane Becker writes in the show catalogue, "In addition to the beauty, flawless technique, and accessibility of the narrative on display in so many of these artworks, their appeal to Nineteenth Century collectors lay in the fact that they often reinforced the tastes and values of these same affluent classes." In other words, you could reinforce or help establish your social status by the art you purchased.

This explains why aristocratic and upper middle class patronage of this art was so strong in its day. Swanson argues that the art reached across social boundaries, in that less fortunate people of the day also loved the art. These were prominent artists, men who had spent years in the Academie de Beaux Arts, or the Royal Academy, refining their skills. Art training was rigorous and thorough, resulting in highly-polished detailed paintings.

The exhibition is divided into themes: "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Victorian Life," "The Antique," "Orientalism," "Allegory, Mythology and Religion," "Peasant Scenes and Country Life," and "Contemporary Fashion and Society." These six themes were popular with the artists and patrons of the second half of the Nineteenth Century.

The "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Victorian Life" theme comprises works by members of a key mid-Nineteenth Century British art movement that influenced European and English artists later in the period. Founded in 1848, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood rebelled against the art they learned and saw at the Royal Academy in London. They drew inspiration from the simplicity and purity of the art created in Italy prior to the painter Raphael (1483-1520) and hence the source of their name. The Pre-Raphaelites painted in bold, bright colors with an attention to minute detail. Their works depict themes of romance and unrequited love, chivalrous knights from the legend of King Arthur, and other tales from medieval literature. The founding members of the Brotherhood, Sir John Everett Millais (1829-18996) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), are both represented in the exhibition.

"The Wedding of St George," by Rossetti, is reminiscent of great Italian frescoes, and its simple yet formal frontal presentation makes it seem as if it had been done much earlier than 1864. St George and his bride are in the upper center of the piece. He is wearing a scarlet robe over his shining armor and she is dressed in rose with a blue robe. One of his arms is around her and they are clasping hands in a symbol of true love. The figures are seated at a table draped in white, with columns on either side. The King and Queen are present, and two trumpeters announce the importance of the occasion. The King looks away from the scene, perhaps because he is put off by the sight of the slain dragon's head brought to the wedding on a golden platter with St George's bloody sword.

"The Antique" category shows works by artists who recreated activities of upper-middle class Victorian life and placed them in settings of ancient Greece and Rome. Some of the paintings were precise in their rendering of Roman architecture, such as Alma-Tadema's depiction of Roman tiling and marble tables in "The Letter from an Absent One," while others were more generalized. In "A Quiet Pet" by John William Godward, a beautiful woman reclines against a generalized marble wall draped with a lion skin, and offers a cherry to a small tortoise.

A stunning painting by Jean-Leon Gerome entitled "The First Kiss of the Sun" shows the tops of pyramids aglow with the first light of dawn. Camels rest at an Arab encampment in the foreground, giving the viewer a feeling of authenticity. This work is a prime example of the exhibition theme of "Orientalism": exotic scenes set along the coast of Africa from Morocco to Egypt, and on through Arabia and the Levant countries bordering the East Mediterranean to the Ottoman Empire.

Idealized human figures, noble sentiments and narrative pictures are what make "Allegory, Mythology, Religion" a separate theme. The paintings embrace different manifestations of history painting. The dramatic Biblical tragedy depicted in Alexander Cabanel's "Le Paradis Perdu (Paradise Lost)" is a good example. The tremendous social changes taking place during the Industrial Age, especially the throngs of people migrating to the cities, made art patrons long for the simplicity and purity of country life. As a consequence, realistic and idealized country scenes were highly prized.

The exhibition theme "Peasant Scenes and Country Life" shows the late Nineteenth Century's celebration of time-honored rural traditions. The exhibition includes Jean-Francois Millet's "Peasant Woman Driving Sheep through a Gate," circa 1851-53, and Jules-Adolophe-Aime Breton's "Peasant Woman Sifting Rapeseed," 1886. Powerfully realistic paintings of people in fishing villages by Walter Langley balance out the idealism of Millet and Breton. In "Waiting for the Boats," Langley shows stoic weather-worn faces of women waiting for the return of their men. A strong sense of community is portrayed as they share their boredom and their unspoken anxiety. Hands are busy with knitting as eyes gaze off into the distance. Without including the sea, Langley implies its nearness and unpredictability.

The show culminates with the theme of "Contemporary Fashion and Society." With this theme, artists revel in the glamorous and sophisticated world of the upper echelons of society. The great masters of this genre were James Tissot (1836-1902) and Alfred Stevens (1823-1902). There are three Tissots in the exhibition - a nice complement to the Tissot exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Conn., which runs through November 28. Photography gave artists new tools with which to capture detail and a feeling of "being there;" and consequently many works of the period capture extraordinary detail. "La Cheminee (The Fireplace)," painted by Tissot in 1869, shows a young girl bedecked in a fine striped dress and hat warming herself in front of a grand hearth. A small dog joins her at the fire. In a painting by Jean Beraud (1849-1936) entitled "Coquelin Cadet Recitant un Monologue," a bevy of exquisitely costumed ladies listen in rapt attention to the man speaking. Jewels, hair adornments, and fans further enhance the crowd. The mood is gay and the attire of the men just as elegant, if more reserved, as they stand attentively in the back of the room.

Just as the Titanic has resurfaced in popular culture, the paintings of the Gilded Age are regaining their luster and prominence among art historians and collectors. Interest in this art had vanished with the appearance of Modern Art, which came forth like an avalanche, burying the idealism of the period and destroying taste for art of the Gilded Age. The Post Impressionists and their successors dominated the art scene for many decades. In the late 1960s, a few key art historians and collectors began to reevaluate the work. In the last 25 years it has again found a place of distinction in the ebb and flow of art appreciation.

The collectors have done their job well - relied on experts, bought judiciously but without apparent financial restraint, and kept within well-focused historical parameters. They have created beautiful unity from scattered masterpieces. The pieces were acquired from galleries, auctions and private collections throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Altogether the collection totals about 150 works of art, meaning that the purchasers averaged more than one work of art every week. Throughout the process the Greenwich couple "became scholars themselves," said Sturges. According to Swanson, "When [the collector] began his collection, it was to buy just enough work to fill the house. After being immersed in the buying process this quickly turned into `Let's pull out all the stops and build the best collection we can.' Now they need to build a new house to accommodate all the art."

When will it stop? "We are about half-way there," said Swanson. The collection will remain a survey of European art between 1840 and 1925. Swanson has established design parameters for the collection so "it could tell us something about the course of the history of art." Swanson remembers the collector saying, "With my money and your brains and our enthusiasm we can build the ultimate collection," to which Swanson quickly replied, "You have brains enough for both of us."

Sturges and Swanson both have enormous regard for the collector and his wife, who have become scholars in their own right. Swanson praises his ability to delve into research that many collectors find too tedious. "He's like a barracuda - jumping on things with force and power with intense passion." The collector met Swanson at a 1996 Sotheby's presale inspection. Nancy Harrison of Sotheby's introduced the two when her client was deliberating between two Godward paintings and asked for Swanson's opinion. Swanson, whose soon-to-be-released book is about Godward, offered his opinion. The two hit it off and it wasn't long before the buying began. It took about a year to build serious momentum, but then the Greenwich pair became a juggernaut on the auction scene.

Swanson and the collectors plan a book about the collection to be written by Swanson in a few years. Hopefully it will be shown in its entirety at some point. The Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm; telephone 203/869-0376.