National Museum of Asian Art

This guide to the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. starts with live peacocks that once strutted this courtyard each summer, borrowed from the National Zoo, and traces the joke behind them to a room just inside: a shipping magnate's London dining room that the painter James McNeill Whistler took over uninvited in 1876, filling it with gold and blue while its owner was away. You'll hear how the two men fell out bitterly over payment, and how the room later crossed an ocean before landing in this building. Listen for how Whistler settled the score in paint.