“FREEDOM, terrible in vengeance, with upraised sword, is striking down Tyranny and Kingly Power. They are overcome, and flee from her wrath in dismay; with them is Anger, and also Vengeance and Discord bearing the incendiary torch. An angry Eagle, striking with his beak, is fighting for, and by the side of, Freedom.”
“WASHINGTON, the Savior of his Country, apotheosized, appears seated in majesty. On his right is the Goddess of Liberty, and on his left is a winged idealization of Victory and Fame, sounding a trumpet, and in triumph displaying the victor’s palm. Forming a semicircle are thirteen female figures, representing the thirteen States.”—Wyeth—1866
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Of the five portraits in color of Washington’s first cabinet, painted by Brumidi on the walls of the President’s room, that of Thomas Jefferson is considered by many to be the most lifelike. Brumidi gave Jefferson the favored location beneath the portrait of George Washington, thus bestowing honor on the Secretary of State, the highest ranking Cabinet officer. The delicate graceful carvings of the picture frame are another Brumidi delusion. Both the portrait and the frame are painted in oil on dry plaster. Mr. Fairman suggests that there is enough resemblance between the Brumidi Jefferson and the Trumbull Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in the Rotunda “upon which to base a theory that Brumidi was at least influenced by the work of Trumbull.”
WASHINGTON-JEFFERSON-HAMILTON
Brumidi was paid $500 for this mural of Washington-Jefferson-Hamilton on the south wall of the Senate Reception Room as indicated by an 1873 voucher. Portions of two empty medallions showing in this reproduction beyond the “decorative figures in light and shade (chiaroscuro)” remind us of Brumidi’s sorrowful words in 1874: “Now many panels remain empty, disfiguring the elaborate ornaments and gilded mouldings around them, which sooner or later must be completed.”
