United States Patent Office, Washington, D.C., showing F Street facade, possibly taken from the upper floor of the General Post Office

Caption label from exhibit "American Treasures Imagination": Early Views of Washington. Several government buildings were among the first edifices in the nation's capital to be recorded by the relatively new medium of photography. John Plumbe, Jr., the first professional photographer in Washington, D.C., operated a studio in the mid-1840s. He recorded the U.S. Patent Office, which now houses the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of American Art.