in the Freer Collection 
possession of Frederick R. Leyland, and 
the story of what followed has been told 
many times with variations in accuracy. 
The fennells give an authoritative ver¬ 
sion, and no rigid adherence to facts can 
abate the picturesqueness of the episode. 
Mr. Leyland bought a house in Prince’s 
Gate and started in to remodel the in¬ 
terior. He owned many beautiful pict¬ 
ures and a fine collection of blue and 
white. The latter was to be arranged on 
shelves in his dining room. The decora¬ 
tor of this room was a man named Jec 
kyll, but Whistler designed the sideboard, 
and a space was left over the mantel for 
the “ Princesse,” with another space at 
the opposite end of the room for pictures 
by Whistler and Burne-Jones. The un¬ 
fortunate Jeckyll had the walls hung 
with' Spanish leather, the ceiling was 
heavily paneled and hung with pendent 
lamps, a rug with a red border was on 
the floor. The leather on the walls was 
painted, not embossed, and flowers of 
strong red occurred at intervals in the 
design. The lovely “ Princesse.” with its 
sensitive color scheme, suffered horri¬ 
bly from these juxtapositions and sur¬ 
roundings. 
Whistler complained and offered to 
better things. At his suggestion the red 
border of the rug was cut off, and the 
red flowers on the leather were changed 
by him to yellow and gold. The change 
was not a success, as the yellow and gold 
conflicted with the tone of the leather. 
Whistler finally developed the color 
scheme of the Peacock Room, which he 
a 1 ready had sketched as a plan of decora¬ 
tion for another house and abandoned. 
Mr. Leyland agreed to the retouching of 
the leather, and went to his country 
place, leaving the house at Prince’s Gate 
in Whistler’s hands. The hands flew, 
following the dictation of the amazing 
brain. He painted with a brush fastened 
to a fishing rod, and his two pupils, the 
Greaves brothers, helped him lay on the 
gold. He told the Pennells how things 
went. “ Well, you know, I just painted 
as I went on, without design or sketch—- 
it grew as I painted. And toward the 
end I reached such a point of perfection— 
putting in every touch with such free- 
dom—that when I came round to the 
corner where I had started, why, 1 had 
to paint part of it over again, or the dif¬ 
ference would have been too marked. 
And the harmony in blue and gold de¬ 
veloping, you know, I forgot everything 
in my joy in it.” 
The Spanish leather swiftly disap¬ 
peared under the gold and blue of mo¬ 
tives taken from peacocks’ feathers, and 
the patterns that were repeated in dif¬ 
ferent combinations on the walls and 
along the dado were crowned by the 
paintings on the interior shutters of the 
window’s, where the magnificent birds ap¬ 
peared in full splendor. Before the end 
they appeared again in the wall space 
opposite the “ Princesse ”—two peacocks, 
one of which stands amid flying feathers, 
clutching at a pile of gold coin, while the 
other, facing him, bristles in triumphant 
anger. These birds typify the painter 
and his patron in the mood created by 
Whistler’s treatment of the room supple¬ 
mented by the fact that many people had 
been asked to the house during the prog¬ 
ress of the decoration, without the own¬ 
er’s permission or ^knowledge, and by 
the bill submitted by Whistler for double 
the amount agreed upon. ** 
The splendor of the Peacock Room can¬ 
not change the opinion of just men not 
yet made perfect as to the provocation 
under w'hich Leyland acted when he sent 
Whistler a thousand pounds instead of 
the two thousand guineas demanded. 
But when Whistler added the finishing 
touch to his work by painting in the 
two opposing birds where Leyland, sit¬ 
ting at dinner with his back to the 
“Princesse,” always would see before him 
“ the apotheosis of Part et Pargent,” the 
room was left as it was without the 
change of a touch. 
