Peonies+in+the+Wind+with+Kakemono+Borders

Date: ca. 1893
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1973/1973.43_1a.jpg?itok=Vo1bd10k width="171" height="356" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/peonies-in-the-wind-with-kakemono-borders-14200"]] || Title: **Peonies in the Wind with Kakemono Borders**

Artist: **John La Farge** Born: New York, New York 1835 Died: Providence, Rhode Island 1910

Medium: stained glass and lead Dimensions: 56 1/8 x 26 in. (142.6 x 66.1 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Senator Stuart Symington and Congressman James W. Symington

Accession: 1973.43 || The American statesman and official, John Hay, commissioned La Farge to created colorful glass windows for the dining room in his Washington, DC home. Hay’s neighbor Henry Adams suggested the commission, which was La Farge’s only request for a private residence in the 1890s. The final windows are known as // Peonies Blown in the Wind // (1879-1881) and //Peonies in the Wind with Kakemono Borders//.
 * About the Artwork: **

Sources: James L. Yarnall, John La Farge, //A Biographical and Critical Study// (Burlington: Ashgate), 218-219; Henry Adams, Kathleen A. Foster, Henry A. La Farge, H. Barbara Weinberg, Linnea H. Wren, and James Yarnall, John La Farge (New York: Abbeville Press), 214.

Interestingly, in 1969 one of La Farge’s oriental inspired windows was attributed Louis C. Tiffany production (Adams, et. all, 214).

//Peonies in the Wind with Kakemono Borders// is a variation of a window La Farge made for Boston patron, Frederick Lothrop. Unlike his earlier works, the two windows created for Hay “appear flat with broad bands of color and borders simulating Japanese kakemono brocades” (Tarnall, 218). The harmonious colors combinations are amazing, and they are evocative of the “resonate tones of chamber music” (Adams, et. all, 214). Kakemono are Japanese hanging scrolls affixed to walls.

The artist first attempted to use cloisonné firing techniques, but the project failed. La Farge then used commercial opalescent glasses for the Hay commission, resulting in the window that now resides in the SAAM collections (Yarnall, 218; Adams, et. all, 214, 220).


 *  Suggested Questions: **

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page
 *  Links: **