By Molly Hubert

The Boston Loves Impressionists exhibit is now on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, displaying a selection collected over the years by dealers, curators, and collectors, and now, the works of local impressionist lovers. During the month of January, the museum made a list of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and related works and allowed people to vote online for 30 works that would be added to the long-standing Impressionist exhibit at the museum.

The very first crowdsourced exhibit for the museum collected over 40,000 votes and is the work of Emily Beeny, the MFA’s assistant curator of European paintings.

“I think a lot of people voting are probably regular visitors. So I have faith in their judgment,” Beeny told The Boston Globe. “Ours is an extraordinary collection, so whatever they chose will be compelling and have a story to tell. And I’ll be proud to hang it on the walls.”

Boston is no stranger to Impressionist work. While many still scoffed at the freely brushed, whimsical style in the late 1800s, Bostonians were quietly amassing the largest collection outside of France, where the genre was established by painters like Monet, Renoir, and Degas. Collectors on Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and Brookline were able to buy work by these painters in the 1870s and 1880s at bargain prices while more modern and classical art were high in popularity. These pieces were later sold or donated to the MFA to be seen by thousands upon thousands of art lovers today.

Voters were able to select from about 50 works from Jan. 6 to 26. Each week the museum presented a new category of paintings: “On the Water,” “From the Land,” and “Of the People.” Although this is the first collection to be curated in part by the public, other museums have allowed visitors to select art for exhibitions. The Baltimore Museum of Art, Chicago History Museum, and Smithsonian American Art Museum have all hosted crowdsourcing events.

The exhibit features “Boston’s top 10” favorite pieces amongst the 30 selected.

Vincent van Gogh’s “Houses at Auvers” earned the most votes (4,464), surprisingly taking the lead over Claude Monet, whose “Water Lilies” came in second. Edgar Degas’s “Little 14-year-old Dancer,” the only sculpture featured on the voting list, came in third.

The top three paintings are highlights at the very beginning of the exhibit. Opening on Valentine’s Day, the display is set to run through May 26.