Vintage View: The Peacock Room

Kya deLongchamps takes a look at a brutal row surrounding an exquisite, 140-year-old survivor of the Aesthetic dream — The Peacock Room.

JUST imagine. You are a heavyweight industrialist and generous patron of the arts, with a magnificent Palladian house in the capital.

The city perch is being decorated by a top designer, with the help of a revered painter you admire, when you are called away from home on business. After a few weeks, the sub-contracted artist and friend sends you the following: “Your dining-room is really alive with beauty — brilliant and gorgeous, while, at the same time, delicate and refined to the last degree.