•osi® r P 5 ? m t 1 
Famous Art Collection 
Has a Beautiful Home 
/ ' ■V 
)^ON. 
ELIZABETH RICHARDS DAVID 
F L.ANKED by the Smithsonian 
Institution on the one side and 
the Department of Agriculture 
on the other, the new Freer Art 
Gallery, a simple one-story structure 
with an ample high basement and 
open central court, will, be opened 
soon in Washington. 
Within a few months this million- 
dollar Lorenzo-Flohehtine building 
will contain the most representative 
assemblage of art masterpieces in 
this country or any other. The mu¬ 
seum is a gift and the most unique 
and restrictive bequest the nation has 
ever received from one of its citi¬ 
zens. 
The donor of this extraordinary gift, 
Charles Lang Freer, began his life in 
the Catskills, sixty-five years ago, and 
there, over a year ago, those who 
loved him best laid him to rest. If 
he had lived a short time longer he 
would have seen the result which 
justified his outlay of time and money. 
Mr. Freer’s success in business and 
in art was simply the logical result of 
seeing and seizing. While living in 
one room and cooking his meals over 
an oil stove he climbed from the post 
of timekeeper to director of the Eel 
River railroad, a short line of only 
thirty miles of track, sixteen freight 
and six passenger cars and two loco¬ 
motives. When the road was sold 
Mr. Freer and his friend, Frank Jo¬ 
seph Hecker, since Panama cabal com¬ 
missioner, pooled their frugal savings, 
a few thousand dollars, went to De¬ 
troit and started in a small way the 
Peninsular Car Company, the first 
car works in the west. In 1900"they sold 
out .to a trust company for a vast 
sum. During the next twenty years 
Freer devoted himself to unwearied 
searching in all lands, but particular¬ 
ly in the far east and near east, for 
objects of art of the highest quality 
and widely separated periods of high 
civilization. 
His efforts were abundantly re¬ 
warded. He always came back laden 
with Wonderful specimens from old 
temples, palaces and tombs and treas¬ 
ure chests—marvellous glass out ot 
Egypt, fictile productions from hith¬ 
erto unknown sources, strange jn~ 
cised potteries from Babylon and Nin¬ 
eveh; potteries from Korea, with 
their peculiar slip and inlay decora¬ 
tions, and Chinese porcelains and tex¬ 
tiles in all reigns from 1766 B.C. to 
1776 A.D. 
* * * * 
ivjR. FREER was the pioneer col- 
lector of Chinese and Japanese 
art. He reveled in their craftsman¬ 
ship, whether of painting, print or 
pottery. To this vast assemblage of 
Asiatic art he added specimens from 
the works of eleven modern Ameri¬ 
can artists, giving as his reason that 
he found in them the same feeling for 
the beautiful inherent in the works 
relationship existing between the 
ancient oriental and modern art mas¬ 
terpieces can now be verified. He 
demonstrated his discovery by selec¬ 
tions from the works of Winslow 
Homer, John Singer Sargent, J. Gari 
Meichers, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, 
Joseph Linden Smith, Childe Hassam, 
Abbot Handerson Thayer, Dwight 
William Tryon, John Henry Twatch- 
man and James McNeill Whistler. 
Seven galleries are required to ex¬ 
hibit these examples. 
With ali obeisance to ten of these 
artists, the thrill of the gallery is 
the Whistler collection. Mr. Freer 
was the first American collector to 
begin to gather the works of this 
famous artist. v 
His 1,200 Whistler specimens requite 
three large galleries, besides special and 
separate space for the world-wide fa¬ 
mous peacock room. 
When this famous peacock room was 
thrown on the market Mr. Freer was the 
ready and quick purchaser. The entire 
contents, inside woodwork and decora¬ 
tions were transported to his home in 
Detroit and reconstructed precisely as 
they stood in the Leland House in Lon¬ 
don, and the entire contents are again 
reconstructed in the gallery exactly as 
they stood in the annex Mr. Freer built 
especially for them in Detroit. 
* * * * 
'HT'HE history of this room really be¬ 
gins with the rose and silver pic¬ 
ture—“La Princess du Pays de la Por- 
celaine.” It was Rosetti who suggested 
to Whistler that Christine Spartali, 
afterward Countess de Cohen, and sis¬ 
ter of his model, Mrs. Stillman, better 
known as Marie Spartali, would be the 
exact model for his proposed princess. 
It was also Rosetti who negotiated the 
sale of the picture to a collector, from 
whom it was purchased by Frederick R. 
Leland for 420 guineas. A year after 
Whistler’s death Mr. Freer paid 5,000 
guineas for the lovely princess. Dressed 
as she is in a Madame Butterfly’s 
clothes, she is far from looking the part 
of the Madame Butterfly of opera fame. 
Only her beautiful “clothes” and the 
setting are Japanese. The entire color 
scheme and setting were inspired by a 
Japanese screen and robe in Whistler’s 
possession—and with these gorgeous 
“properties” and the pretty Greek girl 
he made an arresting and unforgettable 
picture-. 
When Mr. Leland bought the house in 
Princes Gate he made many radical 
alterations in its construction and deco¬ 
rations. The dining room was made 
over over according to the taste of a Mr 
Jeckyll—and the princess was to be the 
lrl < i r . y i , and P ri(3e of the room. When 
M histler, who had designed the side¬ 
board, saw the result he convinced Mr. 
Leland of its monstrous incongruity and 
inconsistency and offered to undo 
Jeckyll’s work and make a setting him¬ 
self worthy of the princess. 
Poor Jeckyll, overcome by disap¬ 
pointment and humiliation, lost his 
mind and died in a madhouse. Mr. 
Leland retired and Whistler had full 
sway He openly declared that he 
was going to cover up the Spanish 
leather and make the one perfect 
mural decoration of modern times. He 
held daily receptions. Acquaintances 
and Worshiping admirers came to see 
his dream unfold. 
