Business trips to Paris, in the early 1900s, marked the beginning of Wilhelm Hansen’s interest in Impressionist art. An insurance magnate, Hansen enlisted the French art expert and writer, Theodore Duret, to help him build a collection of paintings. Today, the works Hansen purchased live outside Copenhagen. They range from Monet, Renoir, and Degas to pre-Impressionists Corot and Courbet, and include artists of the Barbizon School such as Dupre and Daubigny. The collection’s pièce de résistance is its selection of paintings by Gauguin, which span the artist’s controversial career and map the development of his weighty, colorful style. —E.C.