“In reply to your request about the completion of the decorative figures in light and shade (chiaroscuro) at the three panels in the reception room of the Senate according to that already painted in the last year.
“Also for three more panels in the walls of the Senate Military Committee room in real fresco with three battles of the American Revolution, and many other small paintings above a door and at the ceiling, for the completion of the ibid room, for the sum of $5,300.”
C. Brumidi
New York City
“I read in the Herald the adjournment of the Congress and an extra session of the Senate will meet again for the tenth of May.
“I think that in this present temporary recess, will be the time to give orders to the plasterer to finish the panels in the Reception Room, as the oil work will require the wall to be perfectly dry, and of course three or four weeks. Every plasterer can do it smooth like the others already painted.
“I am in attendance of your answer about it, and some information of Senator Wilson’s decision on the subject, for the fresco of this room, to prepare some sketch and cartoons.
“I am at work in St. Stephen’s Church and I wish to proceed with it till you will call me for work in the Senate or if you think necessary an excursion to fix this preparatory work or directions to the plasterer.”
C. Brumidi
The 1871 letter quoted above, written from New York, is the only reference in a Brumidi letter of the Brumidi file in the Architect’s office to any painting of Brumidi’s outside of Washington. It seems to have been proven, though, beyond a doubt that The Crucifixion in St. Stephen’s Church in New York is one of at least four such sacred paintings. The picture of Saint Peter and Saint Paul was painted in the Philadelphia Cathedral; The Holy Trinity was done in the Cathedral at Mexico City, and The First Communion of Saint Aloysius was placed above the altar in the old Saint Aloysius Church in Washington.