“_Senate Committee on Naval Affairs_--The decorative paintings of this room are a specimen of the manner in which the ancient Greeks and Romans ornamented their splendid buildings, some of which are still extant in the precious monuments of Pompeii and the baths of Titus. America with the sea divinities are painted on the ceiling in real fresco. These mythological figures are delineated agreeably to the poetical descriptions we have received of them, and they are Neptune, the god of the seas, Amphitrite, his wife, Aeolus keeping the winds chained to the rocks, Venus the daughter of the Sea, Oceanus with crampfish claws on his head, Thetis, his wife, and Nereus, the father of the Nereids, drawn by Glacus, and the Tritons by marine horses or swans, or else mounted as sea-monsters.” SENATE RECEPTION ROOM Brumidi decorated also the reception room of the Senate where constituents may still call upon their Senators--and admire the ceiling frescoes of the old artist. This room has a vaulted ceiling with two arches. The circular arch has a frescoed center of children and clouds with allegorical groupings about the center designed to represent Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Strength portrayed as beautiful madonnas with pink cheeked children. Four allegorical scenes in the groined arch hold forth Liberty, Plenty, War, and Peace, in the purity of other madonna-like groupings. The walls of the Senate Reception Room have many empty and unfinished panels but the “elaborate ornaments and gilded mouldings around them” lend their own beauty to this room. The outstanding Brumidi work in the Senate Reception Room is a large centerpiece in oil on the south wall showing George Washington in consultation with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. At either side, according to Brumidi, are “decorative figures in light and shade (chiaroscuro).” The old voucher of 1873, signed by Brumidi, and indicating the sum paid for this mural in the Senate Reception Room, follows: “For approximate estimate for painting portraits of Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton on the walls of the Senate Reception Room--$500.00.” Two of the Brumidi letters written in 1871 not only date the frescoes in the Senate Reception Room and those in the Military Committee Room of the Senate already described, but also name a lump sum paid the artist for at least a part of this work. These two letters written to the Architect of the Capitol Building and dated 1871 follow: “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.