Freer Gallery of Art
A Detroit railroad-car manufacturer's obsession with Whistler ended up building America's national collection of Asian art — and left one gilded room behind as proof.
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Free Smithsonian museum on the National Mall holding 26,000 objects across 6,000 years — Egyptian stone sculpture, Persian manuscripts, Japanese folding screens, Korean porcelain — plus James McNeill Whistler's Peacock Room, a blue-and-gold decorated room that is the centerpiece of the American art wing. It also shares the country's largest Asian art research library with the adjacent Sackler Gallery.
What to look for
- Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room — Whistler's ornate blue-and-gold room, the sole American art centerpiece in an otherwise Asian collection
- Japanese folding screens and Chinese paintings and ceramics from East Asia
- Ancient Egyptian stone sculpture and wooden objects alongside Persian manuscripts
Free tours offered to the public; open 364 days a year — the only closure is Christmas Day.
Freer Gallery of Art is one of 37 sights worth the detour in Washington, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Washington pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Washington
- White HouseBritish forces torched it in 1814. It has been the U.S. president's home and office ever since.
- The PentagonDesigned and built in 16 months during World War II — 17.5 miles of corridors, a five-acre central courtyard, and a 9/11 memorial at the exact point of impact.
- United States CapitolEvery street address in Washington DC radiates outward from this building — it is literally the zero point of the city.
- Washington MonumentThe faint color seam partway up the shaft marks where construction stopped for 23 years.
- Smithsonian InstitutionBritish scientist James Smithson left a bequest that became 157 million objects, 21 museums, and a zoo — almost all free to walk into.
- Arlington National CemeteryThe ground holding 400,000 graves was seized from Robert E. Lee's own family over an unpaid tax bill in 1864.