THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2026 77 brought it with him to Paris for the occasion. The desk now figures prominently in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms and is still used on ceremonial occasions. The alabaster bas-relief profile of James Madison that hangs in the Madison State Dining Room was a gift to Dolley Madison from the sculptor, Giuseppe Ceracchi. He had intended to carve a full bust but found flaws in the stone, as he explained in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: “I tried to do it in marbre … but the block torned with spots … and didn’t permit me to perform my proposition.” Porcelain dinner plates featuring the ribbon of the Society of the Cincinnati come from a set commissioned in Canton (Guangzhou) by Samuel Shaw, cargo master of the first U.S.-flag vessel to sail to China. Shaw intended to sell the set in the United States, where George Washington was known as “the American Cincinnatus,” but he did not find a ready buyer. Washington, who counted thrift among his many virtues, shrewdly waited a year until the price came down and then had his friend “Light Horse Harry” Lee buy the set of 302 pieces for $150 and deliver it to Mount Vernon. Invaluable endnotes track the provenance of these and other items mentioned in Views of America, which also provides an extensive bibliography. Along with Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson figure most prominently in the collection. Franklin, celebrated in Views of America and recognized in the Department of State as the father of American diplomacy, was for most of his long life the world’s most famous American. In the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, he appears again and again as the subject of admiring portraits and sculptures by British, European, and American artists. Jefferson’s likeness also appears throughout the rooms in paint and stone; he is present also as the owner and designer of fascinating pieces, notably a writing box and an elaborate architect’s desk. In an essay—one of several in Views of America—architectural historian Mark Alan Hewitt credits Jefferson with promoting a “classical vision [that] prevailed over competing concepts for public architecture.” Jefferson’s vision, he writes, “established the eventual character of Washington, D.C.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio contributed a foreword to Views of America that is notable mainly for its promotion of a MAGA myth. The United States, he writes, lacked diplomats of noble blood and therefore chose in its diplomacy to emphasize the new country’s “classical inheritance,” the “great tradition … of Christian Europe and Greco-Roman civilization.” But what was important about the American Revolution was not its debt to European traditions but its new ideas, its revolution. Americans in 1776 declared BOOKS Celebrating the Elegance and Craftsmanship of the Founding Era Views of America: The Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the U.S. Department of State Virginia Hart, Bri Brophy, Lauren Brown, and Mark Alan Hewitt, with a foreword by Hon. Marco Rubio and photography by Durston Saylor and Bruce M. White, Rizzoli Electra, 2026, $65.00/hardcover, print only, 240 pages. Reviewed by Harry Kopp The seventh and eighth floors of the Department of State are home to 42 Diplomatic Reception Rooms, lovingly furnished with more than 5,000 pieces of fine and decorative art, dating from 1740 to 1840, all acquired by gift, without taxpayer funds. Although it is said that “the Diplomatic Reception Rooms belong to us all,” the rooms are closed to the public and pretty much everyone else. Unless you are escorting a foreign dignitary or attending an invitation-only event, the only way you are likely to see these spaces is by opening Views of America or the earlier America’s Collection (2023), two excellent coffee-table books under the principal authorship of Virginia Hart, director and curator of the State Department’s Office of Fine Arts. Views of America covers some of the same ground as America’s Collection, often with additional and highly engaging backstories. The rolltop desk on which the 1783 treaty that ended the Revolutionary War was signed belonged to David Hartley, the British commissioner, who Along with Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson figure most prominently in the collection.
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