| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Painted wood |
| Brief description | Panel by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, one of four, painted for the staircase at 49 Prince's Gate, London. England, 1876. |
| Physical description | Panel in wood, one of four, with raised centre (no moulding), painted and gilt with floral designs on a green ground. |
| Dimensions | - Height: 63.5cm
- Width: 47.625cm
Dimensions taken from departmental notes |
| Credit line | Given by Leonard Raven-Hill |
| Object history | American industrialist and art collector Charles Lang Freer purchased the famous 'Peacock Room' in 1904 to be dismantled from the house at 49 Prince's Gate, shipped over to America, and installed in his Detroit home. After Freer's death in 1919, the Peacock Room was permanently installed in the Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. These four panels in the V&A collection were located in the hall/stairway of 49 Prince's Gate, as shown in the photograph held in the National Monuments Record Office.
The Smithsonian has 17 other similar dado panels listed as also being from the staircase of 49 Prince's Gate, purchased by Freer from the same vendor, soon after his acquisition of The Peacock Room from Obach & Co. of New Bond Street, London on May 16th, 1904. |
| Bibliographic references | - Calloway, Stephen, Lynn Federle Orr, and Esmé Whittaker. The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-garde 1860-1900. London: V&A, 2011.
The following excerpt is taken from p.165, chapter 5, 'The Grosvenor Gallery, Patronage and the Aesthetic Portrait', by Bryant, Barbara:
...'decorative ventures set the stage for the cult of Aestheticism as collectors created suitable environments for their works of art. Most famously, Liverpool shipping magnate Frederick Leyland called in Whistler to advise on decorations at his new residence at 49 Prince's Gate in London. In 1876, with Thomas Jeckyll's scheme for the display of Chinese porcelain in the dining room left incomplete, Whistler took over to create his own flamboyant statement. The room underwent a complete transformation, becoming 'The Peacock Room: Harmony in Blue and Gold'; but Whistler failed to consult with Leyland about the extent of the work and the payment; the two quarrelled and fell out permanently'.
- The following excerpt is from pp.155-156 by Merrill, Linda. The Peacock Room: A Cultural Biography. Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art, 1998:
'Prince's Gate was part of a residential development by Sir Charles James Freake that began in the late 1850s with the Italianate stucco houses designed by H. L. Elmes. Number 49, which stood at the end of the terrace, was one of the first houses to be completed around 1869, and by the time Leyland took his lease in July 1874, all but two of the houses were now occupied. The exterior was nondescript, which may have been part of its appeal: Leyland avoided the appearance of ostentation, according to Thomas Sutherland, president of the Peninsular & Oriental steamship line and one of the few who seem to have genuinely liked and respected Leyland., A lavish new house would have looked inappropriate, Sutherland said, "for a man like himself who made his own money".
In contrast to the decoration of Speke Hall, carried out in the spirit of renovation, Leyland remodelled Prince's Gate "from the front door to the attic", his approach to modern buildings
...
Leyland set out to make his London home "the most artistic dwelling in the metropolis", as one Liverpool historian remarked, "and whether he achieved that ambition or not, it is certain that at one time his residence No. 49 Prince's Gate was the most talked-of dwelling in the Capitol"'.
- The following excerpt is from pp.178-179 by Merrill, Linda. The Peacock Room: A Cultural Biography. Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art, 1998:
'The centrepiece of Leyland's house in Prince's Gate was a grand marble staircase with magnificent ormolu balustrade. It had a priceless provenance from the London home of the Percy family, one of the last "of the old fashioned London mansions of the nobility". Over a chorus of public protest, Northumberland House had been demolished in the summer of 1874 to make way for a thoroughfare leading from Charing Cross to the Victoria Embankment. That September, the mansion "underwent the final phase of degradation" when every brick and board came under the hammer of the auctioneer, and of the £6,500 realized from the sale, £360 came from the staircase alone.
...
That national treasure was to form the spine of the house at Prince's Gate, rising five stories from a grand staircase that Leyland entrusted Whistler to decorate...Though subsequently overshadowed by his redecoration of Leyland's dining room, Whistler's initial commission for Prince's Gate was, therefore, an honourable project of great importance, for the hall set the tone for the entire house.
...
Whistler eventually discovered the desired tone for the dado in dutch metal, an alloy of copper and zinc that makes an inexpensive substitute for genuine gold leaf; upon that gold surface he painted pink and white chrysanthemum petals that were sometimes mistaken for butterflies'.
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