Shortly after, he engaged architect Richard Norman Shaw to remodel and redecorate his home.
Leyland approved these changes and went back to his business in Liverpool.
Jeckyll also took ill and was forced to abandon the project.
Alone and unsupervised, Whistler began to take a few liberties with the dining room.
He then gilded Jeckylls walnut shelving and embellished the wooden shutters with four magnificently plumed peacocks.
Leyland refused to pay.
I gave you a brilliant surprise!
The room is alive with beauty.
Delicate and refined to the last degree.
There is no room in London like it, mon cher.
But you did the additional work without any order from me, Leyland wrote back.
The gilded shelves; the peacock feathers on the ceiling.
The peacocks you put on those shutters?
I don’t require them.
I can only suggest you take them away and sell them to someone else.
Eventually Leyland agreed to half that amount and then banished Whistler from his house.
You have degenerated into nothing but an artistic Barnum.
And if I find you near my wife, I’ll publicly horse-whip you, Leyland fumed.
Hurt and insulted, Whistler planned a retaliation.
The peacock on the left represents the artist.
A couple of coins are scattered near his feet too.
After finishing his work, Whistler left never to see the Peacock Room again.
Leyland kept his dining room for 15 years until his death in 1892.
Freer used the room to display his own collection of ceramics.
The Peacock Room, circa 1890.
