The Albany Institute is one of the nation's oldest cultural institutions, dating to 1791. This comprehensive overview of its American art and decorative-arts collections presents colorplates and essays about 130 objects (of a total exceeding 20,000), each chosen for its national significance, artistic merit, and relevance to the Institute's mission: collecting and interpreting the art, history, and culture of New York State's Upper Hudson Valley from the late seventeenth century to the present.

Due to the region's central role in the early development of the country and Albany's importance as the state capital, much of the collection transcends regional origins to attain national significance.

Noted concentrations include early-eighteenth-century portraiture, Hudson River-school landscapes (the Institute maintains one of the premier collections of works by Thomas Cole, founder of the school), portraits by Ezra Ames and Charles Loring Elliott, sculpture by Erastus Dow Palmer, landscapes and interiors by Walter Launt Palmer, and locally made furniture, silver, pewter, glass, ceramics, and textiles.

Here are works by artists as various as Nehemiah Partridge, Ammi Phillips, Frederic Edwin Church, several generations of the Vanderlyn dynasty, cabinetmaker Charles-Honore' Lannuier, silversmiths Isaac and George Hutton, and French couturiers Worth & Bobergh and Emile Pingat. Chapters are devoted to Paintings and Drawings, Prints, Miniatures, Sculpture, Silver and Pewter, Furniture, Stoves, Ceramics and Glass, Textiles, and Costumes.