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Sketch for “Calling of Cincinnatus from the Plow”

Oil painting showing two lunettes. The top image depicts a group of men in Roman dress, one standing near a plow hitched to two oxen. The bottom image shows a woman with Native Americans presenting offerings and reclining figures, with a river and farm in the background./tiles/collection/6/6637.xml
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Oil painting showing two lunettes. The top image depicts a group of men in Roman dress, one standing near a plow hitched to two oxen. The bottom image shows a woman with Native Americans presenting offerings and reclining figures, with a river and farm in the background.
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Date

1855

Artist

Constantino Brumidi

Dimensions

16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm) Framed: 20 × 24 × 2 1/4 in. (50.8 × 61 × 5.7 cm)

Accession Number

2010.123.000

Credit Line

Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives

Object Details

This small oil sketch was Brumidi's first work for the Capitol. Although the artist is famous for creating most of the building's frescoes, supervising engineer Montgomery Meigs initially had him paint a single room. This sketch contains Brumidi’s ideas for lunettes at either end of the space. The subject of the top image is “Calling of Cincinnatus from the Plow,” a tale of patriotism from the ancient Roman Republic. Below is an allegorical figure of Agriculture with Native American figures offering tobacco and wheat and personifications of rivers in the corners. The results were so successful that Brumidi's commissions in the Capitol ultimately occupied the rest of his long career.

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Office of Art & Archives, Office of the Clerk: art@mail.house.gov, archives@mail.house.gov