The first american painting to enter the Museum's collection, Henry Peters Gray's Wages of War, was received in 1872, two years after the Museum's founding. Since then over 1600 American paintings by about 800 artists have entered the collection through purchase, gift, and bequest. Of these, some 950 paintings by approximately 400 artists born before 1876 are the holding of the Department of American Paintings and Sculpture. The Museum's collection of American paintings, give its overall quality and comprehensiveness, is perhaps the finest that exists in public or private hands.

This book is the first in a three-volume catalogue which not only will be of special use to the general public in its direct and easily comprehensible style and informative text, but also it will be an invaluable tool for scholars because of the references and scholarly substance. The works included in this catalogue form a comprehensive overview of American painting during the colonial and early republican periods. Remarkably enough, almost every artist of note working in this time span is represented here by either a masterpiece or a work of outstanding quality. The Metropolitan Museum's collection of American paintings is probably the finest anywhere. It has its weakness, and the reader may notice a slant toward New York artist, but, in spite of this, no finer gathering is to be found. [This book was originally published in 1994 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]