This rare lithograph depicts the Old Senate Chamber around 1848—approximately a decade prior to the Senate's move to its current location. The image is from a series of fifty-four Views of American Cities produced by Augustus Köller and published between 1848 and 1851.

Köller, a German-born lithographer and painter, was considered one of the elite artists working Philadelphia during the city's boom in commerical lithography in the mid-1800s. He traveled widely throughout the United States in the 1840s, producing water-color images of American scenes that were later used as the basis for lithographs, like the one shown here.

Köller's lithograph series also includes a smiliar view of the original House of Representatives Chamber (now Statuary Hall) and an east view of the Capitol as it appeared in 1848.