The offer of the Brazilian Government to donate the murals was made in 1952 and it was accepted the same year by the first Secretary-General Trygue Lie.  The preliminary sketches were approved by the United Nations Board of Art Advisers in February 1953.  The completed murals arrived at United Nations Headquarters in 1956. Work on hanging the murals started on 12 July 1957.  In describing the mural "War" the artist said that "War today is no longer a battlefield; it is human suffering, torn fields, ruined cities,  women and children sacrificed, the world shattered by cataclysms; its desolation is swept by the wind of instanity, of madness…"  Mr. Portanari said that the mural "Peace" was inspired by the ideal state of serenity and peacefulness of the spirit described in "The Eumenides" by Aeschylus.  Using what he called, "simple and pure forms, bathed in light, his mural of Peace suggests a "brotherhood of understanding among men."