Over time, ancient Rome’s Portico of Octavia (23 BCE) fell into ruin; by the 12th century, it had become a fish market. At the time Bierstadt traveled to Italy in 1857, Rome was defined largely by its historical significance. Yet it remained an important destination for wealthy tourists—such as the American couple carrying a red tourist guidebook here at center right—who made the Grand Tour of Europe to view the roots of western civilization.

Bierstadt’s poetic title for his view of a Gothic Revival chapel in Germany evokes associations with spiritual enlightenment and ignorance, as well as wealth and poverty. He pointedly contrasted the wealthy top-hatted man inside the sunlit church with the impoverished mother nursing her infant, who is cast into shadow on the steps outside. The artist designed the frame with carved branches and leaves from an oak tree, a symbol of faith and also of Christ’s cross, crucifixion, and resurrection.

Wood painted Market Woman, with its unidentified subject, as a companion piece to Moses, The Baltimore News Vendor. It is not certain whether the artist depicted a free woman buying or selling vegetables, or an enslaved woman doing the daily food shopping for a white family. Though free blacks could work as street vendors, they were denied many basic civil rights, including citizenship and the right to vote.

Wood frequently painted genre pictures—scenes of everyday American life. Here, we meet Moses Small, a freed African American man who was well known for selling the Baltimore Patriot newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland. Moses emerges from the painting’s dark background, tipping his hat toward the viewer, offering us a newspaper from his stack. Wood transformed our role in the picture through his composition: approaching this canvas as observers, we are invited to become Moses’s next customer.

William Rufus Gray was not a prominent person when Stuart painted his portrait. He was just 24, the eldest son of William Gray of Salem, Massachusetts, a multimillionaire senator and president of the Boston branch of the Bank of the United States. The younger Gray’s expression appears guarded, as if he is conscious of being judged against his father’s accomplishments; his parents undoubtedly held high expectations for their son’s future success.

By 1789, when this picture was painted, West was at the height of his career. King George III had given him a series of commissions to decorate Windsor Castle, including a project for the ceiling in the reception room of the Queen’s Lodge, where the royal family was living. A model for the ceiling’s central panel of the ceiling, this painting features a winged male representing Genius descending upon the female personifications of Sculpture, Painting, Architecture, Music, and Astronomy.

In this portrait Hone pauses from his reading, his finger marking his place in the book he has just put down to meet our gaze. The slight twist in his posture also lends a degree of spontaneity to the moment. This portrait was painted when Hone was a young man. He later traveled through Europe and built an impressive art collection. He was a famous diarist, and became active in politics as a speaker and organizer. Later, as mayor of New York, he presided over the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825.

Peale painted this self-portrait in 1822 as a gift to his daughter Sophonisba, and it was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts that year. A note in the accompanying catalogue read, “Painted in the 81st year of his age without spectacles.” This image of the elderly artist-scientist conveys Peale’s intelligence, searching powers of observation, and firm sensibility and idealism.

Before painting a portrait, Stuart would observe his sitter in order to determine which side of his or her face would give the best outline of their profile. He would then choose that side to be closer to the viewer’s eye. As a sought-after portraitist, Stuart developed many such techniques during the course of his career. A prolific artist and enterprising businessman, he executed more than 1,100 portraits during his lifetime.

As the nation became a democracy, Americans felt closely linked to the ancient Athenian democracy of the classical past, and a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman history flourished. This reverence for the political and philosophical tenets of Neoclassicism was seen in the fine and decorative arts. In this portrait, the sitter poses in a classical landscape with a deer, recalling the attributes of Diana, goddess of the hunt and protector of wild animals.