20 THE CAPITOL DOME
Of Female Allegories and Male Putti:
A Sampling of Statuary and Murals
in the Library of Congress
by Lynda Cooper, Ph.D.
C
onstructed between 1889 and 1897, the omas
Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress was
designed as an Italian Renaissance palazzo surrounding a
domed rotunda. Suffused with mural paintings, statuary,
mosaics, and stained glass throughout, this Beaux-Arts
structure promotes the ideal of uniting all the arts on a
grand scale. is article discusses three examples of sculp-
tures in bronze, marble, and plaster and one series of murals
in the Great Hall and the Main Reading Room.
Among the artists who created decorations for the Great
Fig. 1. Philip Martiny. Bronze statue of a female figure holding a torch of electric light on a newel post of the grand staircase,
ca. 1896, Great Hall, Library of Congress, omas Jefferson Building.
SEE
NOTES
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