Room H-144, now the hearing room for the House Committee on Appropriations, was the first room in the United States Capitol decorated with murals by Constantino Brumidi (1805-1880), who painted them in 1855-1856. This fresco cycle is also one of the most beautifully designed in the Capitol.

The room is part of the south Capitol Extension designed by Thomas U. Walter and supervised by Captain Montgomery C. Meigs beginning in 1851. Because the room was assigned to the Committee on Agriculture, the Four Seasons were painted on the vaulted ceiling and themes from classical and American history related to agriculture were chosen for the walls.

The figurative scenes in the ceiling vaults and lunettes painted in true fresco were conserved in 1987 and 1988. Testing conducted in 1988 showed that the walls were also painted in true fresco to resemble stone, with illusionistic carved moldings forming arches. Brumidi's frescoed moldings could also be seen when the over-mantel mirror was removed for conservation. This is the only room in the Capitol known to have been painted entirely in true fresco from floor to ceiling.

Over the years, Brumidi's murals darkened with grime and soot. After a small fire in the room in 1920 damaged two square yards of frescoed wall, surfaces were scrubbed and the walls were completely repainted with oil-based paint for the first of many times. Because of time constraints at the end of the 1988 conservation project, the flat areas were repainted to match the lighter stone color found during testing in between the moldings that had been repainted in greenish tones.

During the August 2004 recess, a pilot project was carried out to remove the overpaint from one section of the wall in order to determine whether it would be possible to reveal Brumidi’s fresco, or whether the wall would be found so damaged that most of it would need to be replicated.

The pilot project was even more successful than anticipated. The conservators were able to carefully apply paint strippers and remove the overpaint without damaging the fresco. The wall was found essentially intact, with only one major area of replastering. Its illusionistic carved stone moldings were painted to look as if the light from the window is falling on them. The wall was covered with cracks darkened with oil and grime; the conservators ingeniously identified a safe poultice material and technique that worked to pull these substances out of the cracks, leaving them almost invisible. Finally, damaged and replastered areas were inpainted and replicated to match the original. The horizontal line where Brumidi’s plasterer stopped and started can still be seen.

The restoration of Brumidi's design for the lower half of the room has made the illusionistic carvings and scenes above look even more convincingly three dimensional and vivid.

With the success of the pilot, the project is being continued to uncover the rest of the frescoes on all of the walls. It is known that there are some large areas of damage and replastering, particularly on the east wall, that will need to be replicated. However, tests during the pilot revealed that Brumidi's illusionistic moldings can be found under the overpaint on the other walls.