GOLDEN PEACOCK ROOM, completed in 1877
The Peacock Room, originally designed as a dining room for Frederick Richards Leyland, showcases late-19th century European Japonism. Initially by British architect Thomas Jekyll to display Leyland’s blue and white Chinese porcelain, American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler took over the project after Jekyll fell ill. The striking gold and blue interior eventually found its way to American industrialist Charles Lang Freer’s Detroit home in 1904, where it displayed his collection of ceramics from Asia and the Middle East. After Freer’s death, the room was donated to the Smithsonian and now resides in the Freer Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C.
(Photos credit: 1. Photo: Smithsonian (CC BY-SA 2.0); 2., 3. Photo: Anthony G. Reyes (CC BY-ND 2.0)

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