Today’s Americans might think that train travel is more idyllic than utilitarian, but for Claude Monet, trains signaled the arrival of a new, modern age.

It makes sense that the Impressionists, painfully modern in nearly every aspect of their lives, would have loved a good train ride. They were flaneurs wandering about town and pondering the meaning of life, pleasure-seekers enjoying the new concept of nightlife, and travelers adventuring by train. Monet especially loved this invention of modern travel, as well as all the machinery and architecture that surrounded it. The Gare Saint-Lazare, in all its glass and iron glory, featured modern building materials and linked two of Monet’s favorite cities, Paris and Normandy, where he developed his now-infamous painting style.

The steam locomotive, an industrial form of travel made possible by new technology and materials like steel and coal, quickly became an emblem of modernism. Just a few years before Monet set up shop to obsessively paint this train station, he experienced J.M.W. Turner’s impressive Rain, Steam, and Speed at the National Gallery in London. Coincidentally, one of Monet’s other renditions of this train station now resides alongside his inspiration in the National Gallery’s collection. This was Monet’s first foray into painting the same scene multiple times, a practice he would develop over the next few decades with series of subjects like the Rouen Cathedral and haystacks.

A painting of this caliber could only get to the Art Institute of Chicago through equally high-caliber means. This stunning Monet comes from the collection of Martin A. Ryerson, one of the museum’s founding trustees and most significant donors. Like most rich people, Ryerson came from money. Ryerson’s father made his fortune in the early fur trapping and lumber businesses in Michigan in the first half of the nineteenth century. He then took his family to Chicago, where he made even more money in the booming real estate business.

Ryerson’s fabulous circumstances allowed him to gallivant around the world collecting art in accordance with the Art Institute of Chicago’s mission – to create an encyclopedic collection that represented all periods and styles. His hefty bank account also allowed him to scout out and collect artworks at home, too. Ryerson acquired this painting after Impressionism rocked American sensibilities after its debut at Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. It’s pretty safe to say that Ryerson had a much better time than the poor murder victims of H. H. Holmes’s famed Murder Castle, which also debuted at this fair. Here, Ryerson got his hands on a work by John Singer Sargent and saw Winslow Homer’s The Herring Net, which he later purchased in 1915. Ryerson donated a bulk of his collection to the Art Institute after his death in 1933, and his acclaimed artworks helped put the museum on the map.