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26 from the naturalness of the sitter's attitude and the unassuming, workmanlike characterization of the famous inventor. After seeing the plaster model of Fulton in Roberts's Chestnut Street studio, a Philadelphia critic wrote the fol- lowing description: e sculptor abandoned heroics at the outset, and endeavored to imagine Fulton . . . in his habit as he lived. . . . He has accordingly represented Fulton as a stalwart man in the prime of life, who has thrown himself in an easy and unconstrained attitude in an el- bow-chair, and is intently engaged in studying a small model of a steamboat which he holds with both hands on his knees. e inventor has his coat off and his ruf- fled shirt cuffs turned up at the wrist, and a small vise and other tools by his side, and a variety of books and papers at his feet suggest the workshop. e figure sits crossways in the chair, the feet have the peculiar twist which a person is apt to unconsciously take when seated in deep study, the body is limp, the limbs relaxed, and the whole force of the man is concen- trated in a powerfully modeled face that suggests the most intense and anxious thought. 34 But not everyone saw the statue in such a positive light. Some criticized the casual informality of Roberts's statue as a misrepresentation of Fulton's gentlemanly character. Reacting to Roberts's model in 1881, for example, a writer for the American Architect and Building News seriously doubted that "the bare arms, the ungraceful attitude, and the workman's tools" correctly expressed "the character of the delicate and courtly Fulton." "ere is at least a ques- tion," the writer continued, "whether all beauty in a work of art should be sacrificed in order to reproduce as many as possible of the unattractive qualities of a subject." 35 In 1888, John H.B. Latrobe, a prominent Baltimore lawyer and the son of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the architect of the Capitol from 1803–11 and 1815–17, wrote with re- gard to Roberts's statue of Fulton that "whatever may be its merit as a work of art, in one respect it does him an injustice. He was not a mechanic, working in shirt sleeves. He belonged in social life to the rank of what are called gentlemen." 36 For Latrobe and the American Architect and Building News critic, the menial nature of Roberts's characteriza- tion (what some observers at the time would have called "progressive" but what they called "unattractive" and "an injustice") was clearly demeaning to the subject and con- flicted with their idealization of Fulton as a more refined manifestation of American genius. In contrast, Brumidi's Fulton inspired no such misgivings. Taking a more conser- vative approach by drawing upon a distinctive tradition of American portraiture dominant over a half-century earlier, Brumidi blended an aptitude for the mechanical arts and the practical application of knowledge into the cultivated, scholarly image of an enlightened man of science. e late omas P. Somma was director of the Mary Washington University Galleries at Mary Washington University in Fredericksburg, Virginia. A respected art historian, he was the first recipient of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society's fellowship and a frequent contributor to the society's art and architectural symposia. is article is a slightly condensed version of an unpublished paper he delivered at the fall 2004 symposium. Fig. 15. Howard Roberts, Robert Fulton, 1883. Marble, Na onal Statuary Hall, United States Capitol. ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL THE CAPITOL DOME SPRING 2014