"Declaration of Independence" was the first of four paintings that John Trumbull completed for the rotunda. Commissioned in 1817, purchased in 1819 and placed in 1826. The painting depicts John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, Benjamin Franklin, and the principal author, Thomas Jefferson—members of the Committee of Five, which drafted the Declaration of Independence—presenting the declaration to the Second Continental Congress and President John Hancock in July 1776 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.