The East Room is the largest room in the White House, the home of the President of the United States. It is used for entertaining, press conferences, ceremonies, and occasionally for a large dinner. The White House's oldest possession, the Lansdowne portrait depicting George Washington and painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1797, was rescued from the 1814 fire, and now hangs in the East Room with a companion portrait of Martha Washington painted by Eliphalet F. Andrews in 1878.
Read more about East Room: History and Design, Refurbishment
Famous quotes containing the words east and/or room:
“I know no East or West, North or South, when it comes to my class fighting the battle for justice. If it is my fortune to live to see the industrial chain broken from every workingman’s child in America, and if then there is one black child in Africa in bondage, there shall I go.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)
“It so happened that, a few weeks later, “Old Ernie” [Ernest Hemingway] himself was using my room in New York as a hide-out from literary columnists and reporters during one of his rare stopover visits between Africa and Key West. On such all-too-rare occasions he lends an air of virility to my dainty apartment which I miss sorely after he has gone and all the furniture has been repaired.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)