House of Representatives Chamber Stereoview

Object Details

The view of the Chamber from the visitor’s gallery was a standard image in a 19th-century stereoview series of Washington. Photography studios would create multiple views of cities, selling the visual tour as a package. In the case of Washington, these would include landmarks such as the Smithsonian Castle and the Treasury building, as well as the Capitol. The perspective used in this image replicates that of an actual visitor sitting in the gallery. The painting Autumn in the Sierras, visible to the left of the rostrum, was in the Chamber under temporary and unusual circumstances—artist Albert Bierstadt brought it and The Discovery of the Hudson River into the Chamber unauthorized, as part of his long-standing campaign to sell his work to Congress.