Explore the Reception of this artwork.
In a review for the 1865 Paris Salon, Gustave Vattier wrote that the painting was not ready for display, saying that "a child's breath could blow it over"; he also disagreed with the belief that Whistler was representing reality, writing that the painting was nothing but "whim and fantasy".In her doctoral dissertation, Caroline Doswell Older wrote that, when viewed without its frame, Princess came across as a being like a closely cropped, carelessly taken photograph which seems as if it would be swallowed up by The Peacock Room. However, with its frame, she finds it an "aesthetic object with enough presence to hold its own" in the heavily decorated  room.
The Peacock Room Paris Salon