Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State

Located on the seventh and eighth floors of the Harry S Truman Building in Washington, D.C., the diplomatic reception rooms include one of the nation’s foremost museum collections of American fine and decorative arts.

These masterpieces are interwoven into an interpretative narrative that explores U.S. diplomatic history: charting of the new world and the colonial foundations, the nation’s road to independence and birth of the United States, and expansion westward over the years 1740–1840.

Charitable contributions from private citizens, foundations, and corporations support revitalization and expansion initiatives, collections maintenance and conservation, and educational programming.

This diplomatic achievement is depicted in the collection’s unfinished painting, after Benjamin West’s 1782 original, The American Commissioners of the Preliminary Peace Negotiations with Great Britain.

Hand-wrought silver by patriot-silversmith Paul Revere, porcelain wares from George Washington’s Society of Cincinnati, and companion portraits of John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams, 1816, by artist Charles Robert Leslie are among the national treasures.

The John Quincy Adams State Drawing Room at the U.S. Department of State , where the 1783 Treaty of Paris , ending the American Revolutionary War , was signed on the desk (foreground). The unfinished painting over the mantel depicts Benjamin Franklin and John Adams signing that treaty.