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Latrobe's letters provide key dimensions and param- eters of the figure itself and its accoutrements. Subjectively, Latrobe's letters muse about his favorite sculptors, his pro- clivities in art, and his emotional response to stylistic ideas and elements. Both the parameters of his design and his aesthetic vision are important. When Latrobe puts pencil to paper, his ideas are clear. Therefore, the one design drawing of Liberty that exists (fig. 14), although of small scale, is detailed and informative. In his first (March 1805) letter to Mazzei, Latrobe described the Liberty as 9'0" tall while seated. The only existing sketch of her appears in a drawing that was delivered to Jefferson prior to August 1805. It is a south-looking, east-west section of the Hall demonstrating the extreme angles of light rays entering the chamber. At the scale of 1/8" to 1'0", the Sit- ting Liberty is shown exactly 1½" high, therefore 12'0" tall per the drawing's scale, including her plinth. The drawing demonstrates the powerful image Latrobe developed in his mind of entering the chamber from the north, and seeing the colossal Liberty opposite, framed by 26-foot columns and crimson drapery. Even at small scale, details about Latrobe's intentions for the Sitting Liberty are obvious. She wears a Greek style gown with décolletage and a high waist, a large ornament at her breast, and her hair piled up with a tiara—a very fash- ionable look for 1805 (fig. 15). Her left arm holds a liberty pole with the Phrygian liberty cap. Her right foot is raised. An eagle in repose, with an outward look as though in a defensive stance, is on her right. Two books are rest- ing on her left, possibly a reference to the two books in Gilbert Stuart's famous Landsdowne portrait of Washington (thought to be the Federalist Papers and the Congressional Record), a painting well known to Latrobe. Writing to Mazzei on 19 December 1806, Latrobe expressed some confusion whether Thorvaldsen had actually been commissioned to carve the statue. If Mazzei had commis- sioned him, it was without Jefferson's approval of the high price. Latrobe also told Mazzei he had already given the work to Franzoni. Latrobe wrote that Franzoni "will not disgrace us by his Sculpture, but that Canova, probably Thorvaldsen, and Flaxman are his superiors to a great degree." 13 Latrobe apparently did not approve of the direction of de- velopment of Franzoni's model. In a letter of 31 December 1806, to his Clerk of the Works John Lenthall, Latrobe ex- pressed misgivings about the model: "Lady Liberty… seldom behaves much like a Lady." Franzoni had sculpted allegori- cal elements that Latrobe thought inappropriate or heavy- handed: a club and doves nesting in a helmet. "It may be correct Symbolology . . . to give Dame Liberty a Club or She- lelah, but we have no business to exhibit it so very publicly." Fig. 13. Filippo Mazzei (ca. 1790), by Jacques-Louis David LOUVRE, PARIS Fig. 14. Hall of Representatives (detail of watercolor on paper, 1804-05), by B. Henry Latrobe PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 11 THE CAPITOL DOME