Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room

James McNeill Whistler

Oil paint and gold leaf on canvas, leather, mosaic tile, glass, and wood

Freer Gallery of Art

Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room is a complete decorative interior created by American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler, originally conceived as the dining room of shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland's London townhouse at 49 Prince's Gate. Working from a framework begun by architect Thomas Jeckyll, Whistler transformed the space into an immersive total work of art, covering the ceiling with Dutch metal leaf and peacock-feather patterns, gilding the walnut shelving, painting peacocks across the interior shutter panels, and coating the walls in rich Prussian blue, all in a unified palette of blue, green, and gold informed by his deep engagement with Japanese aesthetics. The room exemplifies the Aesthetic Movement's doctrine of art for art's sake, treating an entire domestic interior as a three-dimensional painting; it also contains the allegorical mural Art and Money: or, The Story of the Room, which Whistler added to the south wall following his quarrel with Leyland over payment. Purchased in 1904 by American collector Charles Lang Freer, the room was dismantled, shipped to Detroit, and ultimately installed permanently at the Freer Gallery of Art, where it has been on public view since 1923.