Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1180196
15 THE CAPITOL DOME Patron," in Montgomery C. Meigs and the Building of the Nation's Capital, William C. Dickinson, Dean A. Herrin, and Donald R. Kennon, eds. (Athens, OH, 2001), pp. 133–165. For the quote, see letter from Montgomery Meigs to J. Durand, 11 Oct. 1856, Capitol Extension and New Dome Letter- books, Records of the Architect of the Capitol. 17. We know from Meigs's journals that he consulted various books on Pompeii and Raphael's works in the Vatican and that he felt that especially the book on the Vatican loggias could serve as models for murals in the Capitol; see Wolanin, Constantino Brumidi, p. 52. 18. Colin Amery and Brian Curran Jr., "The Legacy of Pompeian Style," in The Lost World of Pompeii (Los Angeles, 2002), pp. 169–183. 19. Meigs, 7 Nov. 1854, "our people's palace," Capitol Builder, p. 144. 20. Brumidi's proposal in the format of a watercolor, in the archives of the Architect of the Capitol, is signed as approved by Meigs on 20 Aug. 1856 (Wolanin, Constantino Brumidi, p. 240). The proposal by James Leslie is mentioned by Meigs, 27 and 28 Aug. 1856, Capitol Builder, p. 426. It should be noted that in both of these notes, Meigs mentions that the proposal is made by Leslie along with another man, Henry Sharp, though Sharp's role in the proposal is unclear. Three watercolor drawings signed by Leslie alone are in the Prints and Photographs Divi- sion of the Library of Congress, Unprocessed in PR 13 CN 2001:127, "Architectural and interior design drawings and prints for the U.S. Capitol by James Leslie," (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/ item/2010634895/). These drawings were pur- chased at auction by the Library of Congress in 1998 (auction in Los Angeles on 13 Febru- ary, 1998, Sale 6768, Lot 4315 in "Fine Books and Manuscripts" by California Book Auction Galleries, a division of Butterfield & Butterfield). Barbara Wolanin, then curator for the Architect of the Capitol, believed these to be the proposal by James Leslie and Henry Sharp mentioned by Meigs in his journal (27 and 28 Aug. 1856, Capitol Builder, p. 426), in part because the watercolors came from the collection of Charles Frederick Thomas. Thomas had served as superin- tendent of ironwork for the Dome of the Capitol (ca. 1857–64), and Wolanin believes that Meigs gave some of the artwork related to the decora- tion of the U.S. Capitol to him. (In the Butter- field & Butterfield catalog these drawings are erroneously attributed to Thomas.) 21. Meigs, 15 May 1856, Capitol Builder, p. 397 ("decorators"); Meigs, 27 Aug. 1856, Capi- tol Builder, p. 426 ("more decoration"). 22. For a study of depictions of non-Euro- peans in the art of the Capitol, see Vivian Green Fryd, Art and Empire: The Politics of Ethnicity in the United States Capitol, 1815–1865 (New Haven, CT, 1992; reprint, Athens, OH, 2001). For a recent study of Pompeian domestic interiors, see Marden Nichols, "Domestic Interiors, National Concerns: The Pompeian Style in the United States," in Housing the New Romans: Architectural Reception and Classical Style in the Modern World, K. T. von Stackelberg and E. Macaulay-Lewis, eds. (Oxford, UK, 2017), pp. 126–152. imaGe credits Fig. 1. Architect of the Capitol Fig. 2. Architect of the Capitol Fig. 3. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy; Photograph: Scala/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 4. Adapted from Francis O'Connor (see note 1), p. 210, fig. 5 Fig. 5. Architect of the Capitol Fig. 6. Architect of the Capitol Fig. 7. Architect of the Capitol Fig. 8. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (image digitally enhanced for legibility) Fig. 9. Architect of the Capitol Fig. 10. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (image digi- tally enhanced for legibility); Architect of the Capitol Fig. 11. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (image digitally enhanced for legibility); Architect of the Capitol Fig. 12. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy (© Vanni Archive/Art Resource, NY); Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (image digitally enhanced for legibility) Fig. 13. Rare Book and Special Collection Division, Library of Congress Fig. 14. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress