Woman and Peacock

Alice Pike Barney was an American Washington socialite, painter, and arts patron who studied in Paris and exhibited widely in the early twentieth century. Woman and Peacock (1900), now at the Smithsonian, reflects the Aesthetic Movement's fascination with the peacock as a symbol of beauty and artistic refinement — a motif Whistler had elevated to iconic status in his Peacock Room. Barney places a fashionably dressed woman alongside the exotic bird in a composition that fuses portraiture with decorative ambition.

The peacock's iridescent plumage provides a rich counterpoint to the woman's dress, with Barney exploiting the colour contrast between blue-green feathers and warm human tones. The handling is confident and somewhat theatrical, with the decorative elements given as much attention as the figure.