The department, established in 2002, is responsible for about 3,000 works, including paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts made in the United States and Canada from the 17th century to the early 20th century.

The collection is especially strong in colonial and federal painting, with some thirty paintings by John Singleton Copley-nearly evenly divided between his American and English periods-and nineteen by Gilbert Stuart, as well as important works by other painters from Robert Feke to Washington Allston.

Mid-19th century painting is represented with a fine group of Hudson River School and other paintings that came to Harvard in the 1895 bequest of Mrs. William Hayes Fogg. Of the later 19th-century artists, John Singer Sargent and James Abbott McNeill Whistler are especially well represented. There are also important works by Charles Willson Peale, Charles Bird King, William M. Harnett, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer, among others.

Rich holdings of American sculpture include neo-classical works by Hiram Powers, Randolph Rogers, and Edmonia Lewis, as well as later 19th-century works by Daniel Chester French and Augustus St. Gaudens.

The collection of American silver includes colonial pieces by such masters as John Coney of Boston and Myer Myers of New York. The 19th-century collection includes important neo-classical and Arts and Crafts silver. Highlights of American furniture include a rare 17th-century Essex county chair, a 1755 slant-top desk inscribed with the names of a Harvard student and his son, and a fine mid-18th century carved bombé secretary desk.

The department is also responsible for the University Portrait Collection of some 1,500 American paintings and sculptures ranging from the 17th century to the present. Most of these works are installed in buildings across the campus.

Information about many of the department's objects is available on Collections Online. Visitors who wish to examine specific works, or our files on each work, should call the department at (617) 496-1822.

See Current Exhibitions at the Harvard University Art Museums.