May 1, 2023
April 30, 2023
A Virgin, Abbott Henderson Thayer
The National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Colombia
seen from Vietnam
seen from United States
seen from South Africa
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from Peru
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from China
seen from United States
April 30, 2023
A Virgin, Abbott Henderson Thayer
The National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC
Tea caddy, named Yariume (”Plum Branch”)
Japanese (from the Uchigaso kiln in Nogata, Fukuoka prefecture), Edo Period, 1614-1624
stoneware with iron and rice-straw-ash glazes, and ivory lid
Freer Gallery of Art
On this day in 1834: the birth of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Above, images (courtesy the Freer) from Whistler’s masterpiece, the Peacock Room, housed at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art. View a panorama of the room here.
The story of Whistler and his patron, Frederick R. Leyland, is actually a bit shocking. We’ll come in mid-scene:
“After Leyland agreed to pay only half, Whistler did some more work on the room. He painted two more peacocks on the wall opposite The Princess. The birds faced each other, on ground strewn with silver shillings, as if about to fight. Whistler titled the mural Art and Money; or, the Story of the Room. Then Whistler painted an expensive leather wall covering with a coat of shimmering Prussian blue, an act of what might be called creative destruction. According to Lee Glazer, curator of American art, after Whistler finished in 1877, Leyland told him he would be horse-whipped if he appeared at the house again. But Leyland kept Whistler’s work.” - Owen Edwards, Smithsonian Magazine
Whistler inspired Darren Waterston’s brilliant installation, Peacock Room REMIX: Filthy Lucre. Waterston wrote: “I set out to recreate Whistler’s fabled Peacock Room in a state of decadent demolition—a space collapsing in on itself, heavy with its own excess and tumultuous history. I imagined it as . . . a vision of both discord and beauty, the once-extravagant interior warped, ruptured.”
Images of Filthy Lucre below, (courtesy the Sackler) top: a finished view, bottom: the work in progress.
Filthy Lucre was exhibited in the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery May 2015 - December 2016. Fortunately, the beautiful produced exhibit catalog, below, is available; request it through our catalog.
Arabic Calligraphy Poster, Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian institution, National Mall, Washington, DC, 2014.
The Sackler Gallery and its affiliate the Freer Gallery are closed until autumn for refurbishing and mechanical upgrades. When they reopen they will return to their role as the primary places to view Asian art in the national capital. The Freer also has a well-known collection of Whistler paintings. When open, the Sackler often uses huge posters in the form of Japanese scrolls to advertise its special exhibits. This one was advertising an exhibit of decorative calligraphy in arabic.
Gold medallions with solidi of Justinian I (top and bottom coins) and Justinus II (middle coin). Byzantine, 6th century A.D. Freer Gallery of Art.
Silver bowl with lion, foliage, and a ring of raised dots. Central Asia, late 6th-early 7th c. A.D. Freer Gallery of Art.
From the Freer:
Made in Central Asia in the region of Samarkand, this decorated silver bowl is an excellent example of the school of metalwork fashioned in this cosmopolitan area on the Silk Route linking Europe and China. In the seventh and eighth century, this region—known as Sogdia—produced luxury metalwork that drew on artistic styles of Sasanian Iran, to the west, and Tang China, to the east.
Silver and gilt plate and bowl with image of hunting king. Iran, Sasanian Period, 4th to 5th century A.D. Freer Gallery of Art. x x
From the Freer:
One of the earliest and most enduring of the royal images created during the Sasanian period (ca. 224–651) shows the king on horseback hunting select quarry: boar, lion, antelope (or gazelle). This image, often embellished with gilding, was depicted on the interior of silver plates, about thirty of which have been found in Iran and neighboring countries. Produced in imperial workshops, these plates were given as official gifts from the king to high-ranking individuals within or beyond the empire's frontiers. In the early centuries of Sasanian rule, silver production was controlled by a royal monopoly and could be minted into coins or fashioned into objects only on the king's authority.