After Freer's death in 1919, the Peacock Room was transported to Washington, D.C. and installed in the new Freer Gallery of Art. By then, having been dismantled, moved, and reassembled three times, the room's physical structure had become highly unstable. Between 1947 and 1950 two Boston restorers, John and Richard Finlayson, carried out an extensive renovation: they remounted the wall hangings with wax on a new plywood framework, repaired the damaged ceiling, restored the cracked and buckled leather, and retouched or repainted many surfaces of the room. The Finlaysons seemed to have concentrated their efforts on the painted panels and disregarded the surrounding framework of wainscoting, even though Whistler himself had lavished attention on every inch of the decoration. Largely as a result of their selective restoration, the artist's subtle harmonies fell sadly out of tune.
Fortunately, Whistler's intricate patterns of color design were successfully retrieved during a recent conservation project. Using cleaning systems designed specifically for the task, a team of conservators gradually removed an accumulation of darkened varnish, dirt, and overpaint, leaving the original surfaces of the room untouched. The wooden wainscoting was revealed to be not murkey brown but greenish gold. And the dark, lusterless ceiling became vibrant with feather patterns spun across a shimmering golden ground. Once the conservation was complete, the dominant inspiration for the color scheme became clearly apparent: the coppery golds and brilliant blues and greens of Whistler's decoration resemble the iridescent markings of peacock feathers.
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