The Story of the Beautiful: Freer, Whistler and Their Points of Contact

Glazer, museum staff and volunteers are demonstrating the new site’s interactive features to Peacock Room visitors at noon every third Thursday of the month, when the room’s shutters are opened for the afternoon. Currently, the room is installed as it was in Detroit, part of the exhibition “The Peacock Room Comes to America.”

“The Story of the Beautiful” site takes its name from Whistler’s belief that “the story of the beautiful is already complete — hewn in the marbles of the Parthenon — and broidered, with the birds, upon the fan of Hokusai,” a quote typical of the Aesthetic sentiment that art and beauty transcend time, place and historical circumstances and resonate across cultures for all those who have the power to “see beauty,” as Freer put it. princess

"The Princesse was purchased around 1867 by the shipping magnate Frederick Leyland, who hung it in his London dining room, where he also displayed his extensive collection of Kangxi porcelain. Whistler suggested some changes to the color scheme of the room which would, he told Leyland, better harmonize with the palette of the Princesse. The final result, of course, was Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room. After Leyland's death in 1892, the Princesse was purchased by the Glasgow collector William Burrell, who subsequently sold it to Charles Lang Freer in 1903, the year of Whistler's death." Copyright © 2010 - 2013 Smithsonian Institution and Wayne State University Libraries

“Despite Whistler’s claim that ‘the story of the beautiful’ is unchanging, the Peacock Room’s dynamic history tells us otherwise,” said Glazer. “Even though it was created 130 years ago, it has been adapted by each owner to their own use, similar to the ways that we have adapted technology to transform our understanding of it. Digital storytelling is the Peacock Room’s next chapter.”

Background

The Freer Gallery opened in spring 1923 as the Smithsonian’s first art museum. Founder Freer was an industrialist and early Western collector of Asian art, amassing a large number of objects from China, Japan and the ancient Near East. Freer was also a contemporary and patron of James McNeill Whistler and collected more than a thousand works of his and other American artists, including the famous Peacock Room. Fascinated by the rich cultural history of East Asia, Freer built his remarkable collection guided by personal taste and self-taught connoisseurship; his emphasis on aesthetic connections across cultures continues to influence the Gallery today.

“The Story of the Beautiful” is one of several exhibitions and projects in 2013 that feature individual collectors whose contributions to the Freer and Sackler galleries have revolutionized the understanding and appreciation of major areas of Asian art. Other exhibitions will feature the vision of Freer’s Chinese collection (“Promise of Paradise: Early Chinese Buddhist Sculpture,” on view indefinitely) and collectors Paul Singer (“One Man’s Search for Ancient China: The Paul Singer Collection”; Jan. 19 – July 7) and Gerhard Pulverer (“Hand-Held: Gerhard Pulverer’s Japanese Illustrated Books”; April 6–Aug. 11). portrait of whistler

The Freer Gallery of Art, located at 12th Street and Independence Avenue, S.W and the adjacent Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, located at 1050 Independence Avenue S.W., are on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The Freer also has the most comprehensive collection of works by Whistler in the world.

Portrait of Whistler, 1897, by Paul Cesar Helleu (French, 1859-1927). Drypoint, 33.6 x 25.3 cm. Gift of Charles Lang Freer.

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The Story of the Beautiful: Freer, Whistler and Their Points of Contact

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