This handsome book is the first to be published in a series of three volumes that catalogue Harvard University’s distinguished collection of American paintings. It documents nearly 500 paintings, watercolors, pastels, and stained-glass windows—many of them never published before—by artists born between 1826 and 1856.

The book features works by Cecilia Beaux, Winslow Homer, John La Farge, John Singer Sargent, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Sarah Wyman Whitman, along with numerous less well-known but important artists. Entries that draw on new research and scholarship accompany the works. An introduction by Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. outlines Harvard’s collecting history and an essay by Virginia Raguin introduces Harvard’s Memorial Hall and its 21 masterworks in stained glass. Also included are 83 works by artist, educator, and Fogg Museum director Charles Herbert Moore.

Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. is curator of American art and Virginia Anderson is assistant curator of American Art at the Fogg Museum. Kimberly Orcutt is associate curator of American art at the New-York Historical Society.