Diplomatic Reception Rooms

The Diplomatic Reception Rooms are the fancy rooms the State Department uses when it wants to have formal meetings with foreign dignitaries. One day I arranged a tour. I took pictures on it.

The Diplomatic Reception Rooms are on the eighth floor of a nondescript State Department building that houses the diplomatic corps.

The rooms are lavishly decorated and meant to impress: America is important and can show off and we're honoring our guests by inviting them to such a place. They include a lot of antique furniture, paintings, and decorations from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although some items were made in America, many were made overseas because the quality at the time was better. For instance, the rooms include hand-made Persian, Turkish, and neoclassical French rugs, Chinese porcelain, British chandeliers, and various types of secretary desks including Bombay and Oxbow. In terms of paintings, most are portraits of early Americans. As for the landscapes, it felt like the majority were of Niagara Falls! I guess it's a quintessential American site that was often painted during the time period in question.

Interestingly, a security guy followed us around on the tour with the tour guide. This didn't happen at the Pentagon (but those guides worked in pairs and were both military). This didn't even happen at the White House.