Melania Trump, Peng Liyuan visit Asian art museum
Washington: US First Lady Melania Trump and Madame Peng Liyuan visited the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, viewing American and Chinese works before meeting students from the Washington area.
The visit brought them to the Peacock Room, an interior created by American artist James McNeill Whistler that draws on Chinese porcelain and Japanese design. They also viewed an 18th-century Chinese porcelain vase from the museum’s collection, according to the White House.
Museum leaders welcomed the two women on arrival and guided them through the collections. Jan Stuart, the museum’s Melvin R. Seiden Curator of Chinese Art, and Chase Robinson, director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art, served as guides.
The Peacock Room is among the museum’s best-known works. Whistler used blue, green and gold across the interior, covering it with patterns and images of peacocks. The result brings painting, architecture and decorative art into a single room.
The two women then viewed a vase made during the Qianlong period of China’s Qing dynasty. Produced in Jingdezhen, it carries floral decoration in colourful famille rose enamels, gold and iron red over a pale glaze. It is part of the Freer Gallery of Art’s collection.
The visit ended with a performance by a youth choir from Hope Chinese School. The students sang “Jasmine Flower” and “Songs & Smiles” for the First Lady and Madame Peng. The White House said the performance concluded a visit centred on art, cultural heritage and young people.
The programme offered a compact tour of two distinct works: an American-designed room shaped in part by Asian art, and a Chinese vase made for an imperial era. The students’ songs added a contemporary element to a visit otherwise focused on objects made centuries ago.
Whistler created the Peacock Room in 1876–77. American collector Charles Lang Freer bought it in 1904 and had it moved from London to the United States. It has been a centrepiece of the Washington museum since 1923. Its design reflects the influence of Asian objects and styles on an American artist working in the 19th century.
The vase dates from the 18th century, during the reign of the Qianlong emperor. Jingdezhen was the centre where it was produced. Together, the room and vase show two directions of artistic exchange represented in the museum’s collections: Chinese craftsmanship displayed in Washington, and Asian design reflected in an American work.