Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room (better known as The Peacock Room[1]) is a work of interior decorative art created by James McNeill Whistler and Thomas Jeckyll, translocated to the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Whistler painted the paneled room in a unified palette of blue-greens with over-glazing and metallic gold leaf. Painted between 1876 and 1877, it now is considered one of the greatest surviving Aesthetic interiors, and best examples of the Anglo-Japanese style.[2]
The Peacock Room was originally designed to serve as the dining room in the townhouse located at 49 Prince's Gate in the neighbourhood of Kensington in London, and owned by the British shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland.[3][4] Leyland engaged the British architect Richard Norman Shaw to remodel and redecorate his home.[5] Shaw entrusted the remodelling of the dining room to Thomas Jeckyll, another British architect experienced in the Anglo-Japanese style.[3][5] Jeckyll conceived the dining room as a Porzellanzimmer (porcelain room).
He covered the walls with 16th-century wall hangings of Cuir de Cordoue that had been originally brought to England as part of the dowry of Catherine of Aragon. They were painted with her heraldic device, the open pomegranate, and a series of red Tudor roses to symbolize her union with Henry VIII. They had hung on the walls of a Tudor style house in Norfolk for centuries before they were bought by Leyland for £1,000.[6][7][5] Against these walls, Jekyll constructed an intricate lattice framework of engraved spindled walnut shelves that held Leyland's collection of Chineseblue and white porcelain, mostly from the Kangxi era of the Qing dynasty.[5][7]
To the south of the room, a walnut Welsh dresser was placed in the centre, just below the large empty leather panel, and flanked on both sides by the framework shelves. On the east side, three tall windows parted the room overlooking a private park,[5] and covered by full-length walnut shutters.[7] To the north a fireplace, over which hung the painting by American painter James McNeill Whistler, Rose and Silver: The Princess from the Land of Porcelain,[3] that served as the focal point of the room. The ceiling was constructed in a pendant panelled Tudor-style, and decorated with eight globed pendant gas light fixtures. To finish the room, Jekyll placed a rug with a red border on the floor.[5]
Jeckyll had nearly completed his decorative scheme when an illness compelled him to abandon the project. Whistler, who was then working on decorations for the entrance hall of Leyland's house, volunteered to finish Jeckyll's work in the dining room. Concerned that the red roses adorning the leather wall hangings clashed with the colours in The Princess, Whistler suggested retouching the leather with yellow paint, and Leyland agreed to that minor alteration.[2] He also authorised Whistler to embellish the cornice and wainscoting with a "wave pattern" derived from the design in Jeckyll's leaded-glass door, and then went to his home in Liverpool. During Leyland's absence, however, Whistler grew bolder with his revisions.[2]
Well, you know, I just painted on. I went on—without design or sketch—it grew as I painted. And toward the end, I reached such a point of perfection—putting in every touch with such freedom—that when I came round to the corner where I started, why, I had to paint part of it over again, as the difference would have been too marked. And the harmony in blue and gold developing, you know, I forgot everything in my joy in it![2]
Upon returning, Leyland was shocked by the "improvements". The artist and patron quarreled so violently over the room and the proper compensation for the work that the relationship for Whistler was terminated.[8] At one point, Whistler gained access to Leyland's home and painted two fighting peacocks meant to represent the artist and his patron, which he titled Art and Money: or, The Story of the Room.[3][2]
Whistler is reported to have said to Leyland, "Ah, I have made you famous. My work will live when you are forgotten. Still, per chance, in the dim ages to come you will be remembered as the proprietor of the Peacock Room."[6]
The dispute between Whistler and Leyland did not end there. In 1879, Whistler was forced to file for bankruptcy, and Leyland was his chief creditor at the time. When the creditors arrived to inventory the artist's home for liquidation, they were greeted by The Gold Scab: Eruption in Frilthy Lucre (The Creditor), a large painted caricature of Leyland portrayed as an anthropomorphic demonic peacock playing a piano, sitting upon Whistler's house, painted in the same colours featured in the Peacock Room.[9] He referenced the incident again in his book, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies.[10] Adding to the emotional drama was Whistler's fondness for Leyland's wife, Frances, who separated from her husband in 1879.[11] Another result of this drama was Jeckyll who, so shocked by the first sight of his room, returned home and was later found on the floor of his studio covered in gold leaf; he never recovered and died insane three years later.[12][13]
Having acquired The Princess from the Land of Porcelain, American industrialist and art collector Charles Lang Freer anonymously purchased the entire room in 1904 from Leyland's heirs, including Leyland's daughter and her husband, the British artist Val Prinsep. Freer then had the contents of the Peacock Room installed in his Detroit mansion.[2] After Freer's death in 1919, the Peacock Room was permanently installed in the Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. The gallery opened to the public in 1923.[3]
The Peacock Room was closed for renovation, along with other parts of the gallery, in January 2016. It reopened to the public in the summer of 2017;[14] it also underwent extensive restoration in 2022.[2]
Legacy
Filthy Lucre, an installation by contemporary artist Darren Waterston, replicates The Peacock Room in a state of decay and disrepair. It opened in May 2015.[15]
In March 2020, Church Life, a journal of the University of Notre Dame's McGrath Institute, published "The Art of Madness and Mystery," an essay which uses The Peacock Room and Waterson's Filthy Lucre to examine at length the differences and inherent character of traditional art (especially in the context of Aestheticism) and Contemporary Art.[16]
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake".
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., focusing on Asian art. The Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and Sackler galleries house the largest Asian art research library in the country.
The Freer Gallery of Art is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. focusing on Asian art. The Freer and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and Sackler galleries house the largest Asian art research library in the country and contain art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of American art.
Charles Lang Freer was an American industrialist, art collector, and patron. He is known for his large collection of East Asian, American, and Middle Eastern art. In 1906, Freer donated his extensive collection to the Smithsonian Institution, making him the first American to bequeath his private collection to the United States. To house the objects, including The Peacock Room by James McNeill Whistler, Freer funded the construction of the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Japonisme is a French term that refers to the popularity and influence of Japanese art and design among a number of Western European artists in the nineteenth century following the forced reopening of foreign trade with Japan in 1858. Japonisme was first described by French art critic and collector Philippe Burty in 1872.
Thomas Wilmer Dewing was an American painter working at the turn of the 20th century. Schooled in Paris, Dewing was noted for his figure paintings of aristocratic women. He was a founding member of the Ten American Painters and taught at the Art Students League of New York. The Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian Institution has a collection of his works. He was the husband of fellow artist Maria Oakey Dewing.
Dwight William Tryon was an American landscape painter in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work was influenced by James McNeill Whistler, and he is best known for his landscapes and seascapes painted in a tonalist style.
Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge is a painting by the American artist James McNeill Whistler, painted around 1872–1875. It depicts Old Battersea Bridge as seen from below. The blue tonality of the work is characteristic of Whistler's style at this time, creating a sense of atmosphere. The painting was discussed as part of the 1878 libel suit that Whistler brought against the art critic John Ruskin. In 1905, Nocturne: Blue and Gold became the first significant acquisition by the newly formed National Art Collections Fund and was presented to the Tate Gallery. It now hangs in Tate Britain.
The Anglo-Japanese style developed in the United Kingdom through the Victorian era and early Edwardian era from approximately 1851 to the 1910s, when a new appreciation for Japanese design and culture influenced how designers and craftspeople made British art, especially the decorative arts and architecture of England, covering a vast array of art objects including ceramics, furniture and interior design. Important centres for design included London and Glasgow.
Frederick Richards Leyland was one of the largest British shipowners, running 25 steamships in the transatlantic trade. He was also a major art collector, who commissioned works from several of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painters.
The Charles Lang Freer House is located at 71 East Ferry Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The house was originally built for the industrialist and art collector Charles Lang Freer, whose gift of the Freer Gallery of Art began the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The structure currently hosts the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute of Child & Family Development of Wayne State University. It was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1970 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
Maud Franklin was an English artist and the mistress of and model for artist James McNeill Whistler.
Completed in 1871, Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea is a painting by James McNeill Whistler. It is the earliest of the London Nocturnes and was conceived on the same August evening as Variations in Violet and Green. The two paintings were exhibited together at the Dudley Gallery.
Walter Greaves was a British painter, etcher and topographical draftsman.
Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle is an 1872–73 oil painting by James McNeill Whistler. It depicts the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle in a composition similar to that of Whistler's 1871 Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother, commonly known as Whistler's Mother. It is now in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Scotland.
The Colby College Museum of Art is an art museum on the campus of Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1959 and now comprising five wings, nearly 8,000 works and more than 38,000 square feet of exhibition space, the Colby College Museum of Art has built a collection that specializes in American and contemporary art with additional, select collections of Chinese antiquities and European paintings and works on paper. The museum serves as a teaching resource for Colby College and is a major cultural destination for the residents of Maine and visitors to the state.
Darren Waterston is an American artist who is mainly known for his ethereal paintings.
Monna Rosa is the title of two oil paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, both portraits of Frances Leyland, the wife of shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland, a regular patron of Rossetti. The earlier and smaller painting was completed in 1862 and its whereabouts is now unknown. The second was completed in 1867 and is now in a private collection.
Rose and Silver: The Princess from the Land of Porcelain is an oil painting on canvas by American-born artist James McNeill Whistler. It was painted between 1863 and 1865. It currently hangs above the fireplace in The Peacock Room at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Thomas Jeckyll was an English architect who excelled in the creation of metalwork and furniture strongly influenced by Japanese design, and is best known for his planning in 1876 of the ‘Peacock Room’ at 49 Princes Gate, London.
↑ Shindler, Michael (March 2, 2020). "The Art of Madness and Mystery". Church Life Journal. The McGrath Institute for Church Life, University of Notre Dame. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
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