school history teacher and i will try and probably feebley fail to do him justice in describing this beautiful room you ve chosen for your 25th lecture. you have chosen a remarkably historic room. but first, i have to thank the offices of the senate cure rater and historian who prepare histories of our art and rooms. without them this introduction simply wouldn t be possible. so to begin. in the early 1900s the house and the senate decided they had outgrown their space. they commissioned two architects from new york. to build them a house and senate office buildings. those have now become the cannon house office building and the russell senate office building. interestingly, if you know they re sort of mirror images from above. but those two individuals were educated in paris and a part of that education brought this beautiful art that you see around this room. they took great care to design this room. in fact, they spent over a year finding this black vained marble that came