As wife of the Secretary of State, Louisa Catherine Adams began posing for Gilbert Stuart in 1821; this portrait was not completed until five years later when her husband, John Quincy Adams, was President.

"Farmyard in Winter", painted by George H. Durrie in 1858, shows nostalgia for an idealized past.

The distinctive oval design, chosen by John Frederick Kensett for its view of Niagara Falls, echoes the curve of the falls itself. America's natural beauties, and Niagara Falls in particular, were popular subjects for landscape painters in the 19th century.

Lighter Relieving a Steamboat Aground, painted by George Caleb Bingham in 1847, hangs above the secretary in the Green Room. This genre scene portrays flatboatmen along the Mississippi or the Missouri River.