The Art Collection

The Second Continental Congress began convening on May 10, 1775, at the State House in Philadelphia, now known as Independence Hall.

Following passage of the "Residence Act," which required the government to move to a new city on the Potomac River in 1800, Congress moved to Philadelphia for a 10-year stay at Congress Hall.

This statue of Philip Kearny was given to the National Statuary Hall Collection by New Jersey in 1888.

Pierre Charles L'Enfant designed the new federal city, Washington, D.C.

Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives; Gift of the Government of the District of Columbia.

The Spanish conqueror of Peru, Francisco Pizarro, leading his horse, pushes through the jungle searching for El Dorado, the mythical land of gold. Pizarro eventually captured the Inca capital, Cuzco. (1533)

This statue of Po'pay was given to the National Statuary Hall Collection by New Mexico in 2005.

Riders are shown at the Hollenberg station, readying to switch ponies. In the background workers string cables for the telegraph, which would soon replace the Pony Express.

This group portrait monument to the pioneers of the woman suffrage movement, which won women the right to vote in 1920, was sculpted from an 8-ton block of marble in Carrara, Italy. The monument features portrait busts of three movement leaders: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott.

In November 2017 a Chair of Honor was unveiled in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center's Emancipation Hall to commemorate American service men and women who are prisoners of war or missing in action (POW/MIA). This chair is one of the original ordered in 1857 for the new House Chamber.

This bronze chandelier provides light for the President's Room of the U.S. Capitol.