Inside Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan’s visit to the Smithsonian’s Peacock Room

Melania Trump and China’s first lady Peng Liyuan toured Chinese artworks and a room shaped by Asian design at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington on Thursday, as their husbands held talks at the White House.

The museum’s director, Chase Robinson, said the two women spent about 45 minutes there and were “full of questions”. Much of the visit centred on the Peacock Room, whose displays of Chinese porcelain made it a fitting setting for the occasion, he said.

“What better place to introduce the two first ladies to our museum on the occasion of high-level conversations and discussions between our two countries?” Robinson told the South China Morning Post.