The Art Collection

On this map of the lands, an Eskimo hunts in a kayak; nearby seal and walrus represent the fur trade as well as the subsistence of the indigenous people.

At the old Stadt Huys in Albany, New York, colonial representatives devised a plan for a union of the colonies. The plan was ultimately rejected, but it became a guide for the later federal government.

The first panel contains the only allegorical figures in the frieze. America, wearing a liberty cap, stands in the center with her spear and shield.

This mural, painted during the Second World War, shows a vision of America at peace.

General Winfield Scott is shown during the Mexican War, entering the capital. Peace came in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which fixed the Mexican-American border at the Rio Grande River and recognized the accession of Texas. The treaty also extended the boundaries of the United States to the Pacific. (1847)

The next congressional meeting place was the State House in Annapolis, Maryland. It was here that George Washington resigned his commission as commander in chief of the Continental Army.

Painted in 1865 by Constantino Brumidi, the Apotheosis of Washington in the eye of the U.S. Capitol Building's Rotunda depicts George Washington rising to the heavens in glory.

The Congress moved to Baltimore, Maryland, a safer haven during the war than Philadelphia, after the Declaration of Independence. It met in this rented building, since known as Old Congress House; the building was destroyed by fire in 1860.

This painting depicts the ceremony in which Pocahontas, daughter of the influential Algonkian chief Powhatan, was baptized and given the name Rebecca in an Anglican church.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who served as the U.S. Capitol's architect from 1803 to 1811 and from 1815 to 1817, built the Capitol's south wing and redesigned and rebuilt the north wing.

Daniel Boone brings settlers into Kentucky.