Photograph
White House Photographs
JFKWHP-KN-C18029
Luncheon in honor of President of the Republic of the Congo Fulbert Youlou (Brazzaville). President Youlou and President John F. Kennedy are seated in the middle of the table (with an unidentified man crouching between them), and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is seated at the table third from the right with his back to the camera. The painting over the fireplace is an 1869 portrait of Abraham Lincoln by George P. A. Healy and was donated to the White House in 1939. The inscription in the green marble fireplace was commissioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and taken from a letter written by John Adams to his wife, Abigail, and reads, “I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.” State Dining Room, White House, Washington, D.C.