What is my favorite work of art?

Last month, I went to the DeYoung's exhibit The Birth of Impressionism - treasures of the Musee d'Orsay (closing this weekend) and discovered a new painting by Claude Monet called The Magpie. I was madly enamored with it. The stark white - the lone bird sitting on top of a fence which could be a musical scale. When I lived in England, I was told that if you see one magpie, it is warning you of danger. Two meant joy. I used the magpie as the costume for Puck in Midsummer when I had to design it in college. But don't remember ever seeing this painting.

I remember being 20 and wandering around Paris, I spent a lot of time in the d'Orsay and the Louvre. I was a poor college student, eating mostly bread and cheese so I could afford to see the sites and visit the museums. I bought two posters there. A Renoir called The Seine at Asnières - The Skiff and a Monet. The Renoir was a gift to my older sister, who framed the poster and hung it in her house. 15 years later, it is still in her house. The Monet, I had framed and it hung in my apartment and then my office. One night 10 years ago, our offices were burglarized, cash was stolen and so was my framed Monet poster. Of all the bizarre things to take!

I don't think of the Impressionists much anymore. Like the Pre-Raphaelites, the Impressionists were my favorite in college. Now I am drawn to the Kandinsky, Picasso and Braque. But going to the DeYoung and seeing all these paintings again, 15 years later, make me remember why I loved them in the first place - the colors, the changing qualities of light, the brush strokes...
I'm looking forward to the second part of the exhibition. To re-discover some of these works and find more...
I did spend about 15 minutes just staring at Whistler's mother. You can see the color in her cheeks... I also didn't remember this painting. I was very confused at first and thought she was holding a light bulb, but then realized it was a mirror. It's called Truth by Jules Joseph Lefebvre. The painting is a bit larger than life size. It started the exhibit along with William Bouguereau's Birth of Venus.