Cole was primarily a painter of landscapes, but he also painted allegorical works. The most famous of these are the five-part series, "The Course of Empire", which depict the same landscape over generations—from a near state of nature to consummation of empire, and then decline and desolation—now in the collection of the New-York Historical Society and the four-part "The Voyage of Life". There are two versions of the latter, one at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the other at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York. Among Cole's other famous works are "The Oxbow" (1836), "The Notch of the White Mountains", "Daniel Boone at his cabin at the Great Osage Lake", and "Lake with Dead Trees" (1825) which is at the Allen Memorial Art Museum. He also painted "The Garden of Eden" (1828), with lavish detail of Adam and Eve living amid waterfalls, vivid plants, and deer. In 2014, friezes painted by Cole on the walls of his home, which had been decorated over, were discovered.