OSC Gallery: More Elegant than Required

Image courtesy of Jay Baker, 2009.

On Monday, the present gallery in the Old Senate Chamber will be deconstructed in order to further investigate the space and prepare the room for its ultimate restoration. As mentioned in previous posts, the current gallery was a 1905 reconstruction of what the architect, John Appleton Wilson, believed to be its original 1777 appearance.

Trumbull's Old Senate Chamber

Sketches of the interior of the Old Senate Chamber, By John Trumbull.
Graphite on paper, c. 1822Courtesy Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of the Associates in Fine Arts, 1938.286a &b

The above images, sketched by John Trumbull ca. 1822, are the earliest known depictions of the Old Senate Chamber. These sketches were drafted on-site in preparation to fulfill his 1817 commission from the U.S. Congress to paint  four large scenes of pivotal moments before, during and after the Revolutionary War to hang in the Capitol Rotunda. This series includes, Declaration of Independence (1818), Surrender of Lord Cornwallis (1820), Surrender of General Burgoyne (1821), and General George Washington Resigning His Commission (1824).