Peacock Room - Whistler's Blue and Gold Room
Photo: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M Sackler Gallery, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)
A stop on Washington DC National Mall Walking Tour, a free self-guided tour.
The Peacock Room began as a dining room in Frederick Leyland's London house, designed by the architect Thomas Jeckyll as a place to show off Leyland's Chinese blue-and-white porcelain on gilded walnut shelves. Whistler's painting The Princess from the Land of Porcelain hung over the fireplace.
Whistler was asked only to touch up the room, but he painted over almost everything in blue-green and gold peacock feathers while Leyland was away. He called the result Harmony in Blue and Gold.
The room turns 150 in 2026. Since it came to Washington, the museum has filled its shelves with changing displays, sometimes Chinese blue-and-white porcelain as in Leyland's day and sometimes the pottery Freer collected, so look closely at what is there when you visit.
Next, explore the rest of the Freer's Asian art galleries.
More on Wikipedia: The Peacock Room · James McNeill Whistler · Thomas Jeckyll
Stops on this tour
- Washington Monument
- National Museum of African American History and Cu
- National Museum of American History
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
- National Gallery of Art
- United States Capitol
- United States Botanic Garden
- National Museum of the American Indian
- National Air and Space Museum
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- The Smithsonian Institution Building - The Castle
- Freer Gallery of Art
- Jefferson Memorial
- World War II Memorial
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Korean War Memorial
- Lincoln Memorial
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- White House Ellipse
- White House
- Lafayette Square