The Peacock Room
Thomas Jeckyll, interior designer and architect, was close to finishing his big 1876 commission: to design a dining room for shipping magnate Frederick Leyland which would fittingly show off Leyland’s collection of blue & white porcelain. A friend of Leyland’s, the famous painter James McNeill Whistler, happened to be working in the front hallway of the same house adding embellishments and decoration. He suggested to Jeckyll that a little yellow in the walls would be just the thing to tie in the centerpiece artwork: his own La princesse du pays de la porcelaine that hung above the fireplace. This portrait of a sinuous and elegant princess dressed in Asian clothing defined the room (and was most decidedly NOT “Whistler’s Mother”).
Leyland authorized the little dabs of color here and there that Whistler thought would finish off the room and left for a business trip. Jeckyll, another brilliant design complete, left for other pursuits.
After that, what happened foreshadows “Extreme Makeover, Home Edition.” Alone at the house, Whistler fancied up the room with gold paint and peacock feather designs on the ceiling; he painted on top of the leather wainscoting with a Prussian blue, and created ornate peacocks in gilded paint on the shutters. Proud as…well…a peacock of his work and eager to show it off, he invited friends (including the press) over for lavish parties in the room.
The story goes that Whistler excitedly informed his out-of-town patron that he’d transformed the room into a state of glorious perfection. Then he presented a very large bill. The wrangle that followed over payment and permission is famously illustrated on the wall across from La princesse: two showy peacocks---one, sporting ruffled silver chest feathers that conjured up Leyland’s typical attire stands, plumage in full array, amidst a mass of spilled coins; and another, more composed, with a curled forelock similar to Whistler’s hairstyle, poses across from it. Here is a spat, immortalized, and available to see by anyone who visits Washington D.C.'s Freer Gallery.
Whistler titled the mural, “Art and Money; Or The Story of a Room.” Leyland must have been at least as amused as he was insulted---he allowed the painting to stay. (But I like to think he wore fewer ruffles after that.)
I wasn't too worried about the original room designer, Jeckyll---all in a day's work, I assumed. But then I read this from his biography, "His disastrous experience with James Whistler over the decoration of Leyland's dining room (the notorious 'Peacock' room) precipitated a mental collapse, and he spent the last years of his life in a Norwich asylum."
