As was true for collections of nineteenth-century architects whose eclectic practices turned to contemporary and historic architecture, at home and abroad, for inspiration, the Hunt Collection includes thousands of photographs of new and old buildings, largely in Europe, of interiors and furnishings, sculpture, iron work, landscapes and city scenes. Many of these photographs were produced by pioneers in the medium, including Charles Marville, Édouard Baldus, James Anderson, and Alinari & Cook. Also included in the collection are images of Richard Morris Hunt's own work, some by Newport-based Frank H. Child, and prints from calotypes of the Middle East created by Leavitt Hunt on his pioneering tour in 1851-1852 with American Nathan Flint Baker.

We know of the Hunt Collection photographs purchased by Richard M. Hunt from a ca. 1905 typescript catalog titled the Library of Richard Morris Hunt, Catalogue of Photographs and Prints. Catharine Hunt and her assistant compiled this inventory by general categories, not individual images. Another source is an interview with Richard Morris Hunt (1860) regarding his library, which states he owned 5,000 photographs.

The Library of Congress has an inventory with more than 2,200 prints, unbound, some of which were originally in albums. The Hunt Collection contains an additional, estimated, several hundred photographs in albums, cataloged by Catharine Hunt by typology and location. Office stamps and dating make clear that some photographs in the Hunt Collection were not owned by Richard Morris Hunt.