Pavilion of the Seals

Tucked into the northeast corner of the Jefferson Building, the reading room of the African and Middle Eastern Division — also known as the Pavilion of the Seals — transports visitors across time and continents, immersing them in the late 19th-century United States, classical Greece and Rome and societies that emerged across the globe. Its Africana, Hebraic and Near Eastern collections span millennia — from a cuneiform livestock receipt dated to 2047 B.C. to Ethiopian manuscripts and contemporary newspapers.

At the heart of the domed ceiling, Elmer E. Garnsey’s rendering of the Great Seal of the United States is encircled by allegorical imagery, blending symbols of the Old World with the new. The Four Winds — figures from ancient iconography — sweep across depictions of American fruits and grains, while dolphins, lyres and torches symbolize fisheries, fine arts and the pursuit of knowledge. An inscription of Abraham Lincoln’s enduring vision forms the border: “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Below the dome, four lunettes by artist W.B. Van Ingen display national landscapes, monuments and emblems of order and conflict. Each scene features a central tablet, inscribed with the words of U.S. statesmen and flanked by female figures bearing shields representing a division of the federal government: State, Treasury, Justice, Post Office, Agriculture, Interior, War or Navy. The cream and gold walls are adorned with seals of these departments and with green bands of laurel.

More than just a room, this richly decorated space serves as an international crossroads. At the confluence of art and governance, a steady stream of scholars, poets and policymakers — both foreign and domestic — passes through.