Of particular note for their fine quality are crayon portraits by Eastman Johnson, commissioned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of his family and friends in the mid-1840s.   These include portraits of:

• Charles Sumner
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Cornelius Conway Felton
• Henry W. Longfellow
• Anne Longfellow Pierce
• Mary Longfellow Greenleaf
• Charles Longfellow
• Ernest Longfellow.

In addition to the American artists, well-known nineteenth-century English, French, German, Italian and Danish born artists are represented in the collection, including Albert Bierstadt, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, Myles Birket Foster, Eugene and Jean Baptiste Isabey, Samuel Prout, Friedrick Overbeck, Pierre Jules Mene, Lorenzo Bartolini, J.E.C. Petersen and Jacques Louis David (attr. to).   A 1664 church interior by Dutch painter Daniel de Blieck is included in the collection, as well.

Several of the rooms contain painted nineteenth-century Japanese screens, including one six-paneled screen by Kano Moritsume.

Most of the collection is personal in nature, including gifts from artists the family met or knew, or purchases made during their travels.

Professional and amateur works of art done by family members figure prominently in the collection, and are linked to the family papers in the archives. Included are works by professionally trained artists Ernest Longfellow, Harriet Spelman Longfellow and Mary King Longfellow, as well as works by other family artists including Henry W. Longfellow, Thomas Gold Appleton, Fanny Appleton Longfellow, Samuel Longfellow, and Alexander W. Longfellow Jr.