When Mr. Costaggini finished the work of executing the Brumidi designs on the Rotunda frieze he had space enough left to accommodate two compositions of his own choosing. Since his designs were never sanctioned by Congress, Mr. Costaggini died in 1907 leaving an unfinished frieze.
A third artist, Charles Ayer Whipple, was employed in 1918 at daily wages to restore some of Brumidi’s paintings on the walls of the Ground Floor Corridors at the Capitol and to make a sample painting on the unfinished frieze. This trial painting he called “The Spirit of 1917.” The Committee charged with final decisions concerning the frieze at that time decided against Whipple’s further effort.
In 1925 Mr. Whipple referred to his frieze painting in a letter to the Architect of the Capitol, a portion of which follows:
“As you know I painted a group of figures in the frieze with the permission of the Library Committee, to prove that I understood the ancient method of Fresco painting, that is, the method of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The frieze is painted in that method and of course must be completed in the mode of the great Italian Master, that of “lime painting on wet plaster.” Mr. Whipple died in 1928. The frieze is still unfinished and still of current interest.
On August 17, 1950, the President of the United States signed a Joint Resolution, H. J. Res. 21, “To provide for the utilization of the unfinished portion of the historical frieze in the Rotunda of the Capitol to portray (1) the Civil War, (2) the Spanish-American War, and (3) the birth of aviation in the United States.”
Each new effort to finish the Rotunda Frieze is a testimony to the artist, Brumidi, and to his inimitable work. Should an artist well schooled in the Italian fresco process not be found to finish the frieze it is the author’s thought that the problem might be solved by adorning the blank portion of the Rotunda belt with a memorial inscription to Constantino Brumidi.
