Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/884685
33 identified the "Grand Vestibule for Great Public Occasions" in the Capitol's center and depicted the two semicircular staircases as described by Trumbull that descended to the ground level. The painter framed the staircases with "a bronze railing five feet high…. and the spectator cannot approach nearer to the wall on which the paintings hang than ten feet." 10 Trumbull's second drawing enclosed in his letter to Bulfinch "represents the grand staircased vesti- bule" so that the stairs ended at the entrances to the vestibules leading directly to the House and Senate chambers. The stairs were depicted on Busby's plan but more graphically on Trumbull's 1818 sketch sec- tion of the Rotunda. (Fig. 9) In his letter to Trumbull, Bulfinch had offered to design a "saloon or gal- lery" to replace the Rotunda for the display of paint- ings, citing the Rotunda's great size as too "vast" and Fig. 8. Trumbull's plan for the Center Building's ground level matches his January 1818 description to Charles Bulfinch. Fig. 9. Trumbull's 1818 section sketch of his design for the Capitol's two-story "Vestibule." THE CAPITOL DOME