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Special Collections

"I Do Solemnly Swear": A Half Century of Inaugural Images

This exhibit features the historic engravings in the U.S. Senate Collection that depict inaugural festivities at the Capitol and around Washington, D.C. It begins with the 1853 inauguration, when the great 19th century weekly news magazines began to come into their own, and ends with 1905, a time when photographic techniques had largely overtaken the use of engraved images in news periodicals.

Senate Vice Presidential Bust Collection

A mainstay of the Senate’s fine art is the Vice Presidential Bust Collection. The Joint Committee on the Library, acting under a resolution of May 13, 1886, began commissioning busts of the vice presidents to occupy the niches in the new Senate Chamber. After the first busts filled the 20 niches that surround the Chamber, new additions were placed throughout the Senate wing of the Capitol. The collection chronicles the individuals who have served as vice president and pays tribute to their role as president of the Senate. It also provides a unique survey of American sculpture from the 19th century to the present.The initial five commissions included busts of the first two vice presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and three former vice presidents then living, Hannibal Hamlin, William Wheeler, and Chester A. Arthur. As directed by the resolution of 1886, additional representations were added to the collection until the twenty existing gallery niches in the Senate chamber had been filled. The original resolution was amended on January 6, 1898, in order to provide for placement of additional vice presidential busts throughout the Senate wing of the Capitol. The Vice Presidential Bust Collection contains works by such premier American artists as Daniel Chester French, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Franklin Simmons, and James Earle Fraser.

Seth Eastman's Fort Paintings

In 1870, the House Committee on Military Affairs commissioned artist Seth Eastman to paint 17 images of important fortifications in the United States. He completed the works between 1870 and 1875.For many years, the fort paintings hung in the rooms assigned to the House Military Affairs Committee, first in the Capitol and later in the Cannon House Office Building. During the late 1930s, they were returned to the Capitol for public display. Of the 17 paintings, 8 are located in the Senate wing.


	Explore the Senate's Art with the Office of the Senate Curator.


	Have questions about Senate art? Email the curator.


	Official Senate records and papers of former senators.


	The Senate Historical Office maintains a collection of approximately 30,000 still pictures, slides, and negatives, including photographs and illustrations of most former senators, news photographs, editorial cartoons, photographs of committees in session, and other images documenting Senate history.


	Things: John Hancock

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