Ming-Kangxi Blue & White Porcelain, The Peacock Room
Chinese Ming-Kangxi Blue & White Porcelain as it’s displayed in the legendary Peacock Room installed in the Freer Gallery of Art in 1923 is perhaps one of the most unique rooms in America. The room also has one of the most unusual histories. The room originally decorated by James McNeill Whistler in Liverpool as a commission for the then artist’s good friend Frederick Leyland. The architecture was done the prominent architect of the time Thomas Jeckyll. Upon it’s completion in 1876 by Whistler and Jeckyll, Leyland reacted angrily, refusing to pay the full bill and actually kicked Whistler out of the house.
As time passed, the room became viewed by critics as an icon of Victorian architecture and interior design. According to all reports Leyland never liked it, but kept the room in place until his death in 1892. Over a decade later in 1904, following Whistler’s death a year earlier, Freer bought the room, he then had it shipped to America and installed it in his massive mansion in Detroit. He then filled it with porcelain from his own vast collection. Freer, an avid collector of many cultures and categories was an admirer of Whistler and had acquired over his life many of his paintings.
In 1920 Freer had the room moved to the Freer Gallery of Art then under construction and became a permanent display following it’s opening in 1923.
Go See the Chinese Ming-Kangxi Blue & White Porcelain in Freer’s Peacock Room
Today the Peacock Room at the Freer Gallery is filled with a dizzying array of late Ming and Kangxi blue and white porcelains once belonging to Mr. Freer, purchased with funds from
the Freer endowment or gifts from benefactors. A few examples are also on display from the late 18th and early 19th C..
If you’re in Washington DC for any reason, take the time to visit. Admission is FREE and well worth the time. Below are many of the examples on display, click any to image enlarge for a better look.
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