Special Exhibition of Korean Cultural Heritage from
Overseas Museum Collections,
Hopes and Dreams Revealed Inside Restored Paintings(June 25-July 20)
- The first public look at Korean cultural heritage pieces in
overseas Museum collections since their being restored in Korea -
The Korea Heritage Service and the National Palace Museum of Korea (Director, Jeong Yongjae) are cohosting a special exhibition called Hopes and Dreams Revealed Inside Restored Paintings from January 25 through July 20. Important cultural heritage pieces from overseas museum collections are on display for the first time since they underwent conservation treatment using Korean expertise. The items in question are a pair of folding screens: Cloud Dream of the Nine owned by the Portland Art Museum and One Hundred Boys at Play now in the possession of the Denver Art Museum.
The two folding screens are part of the Project “Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation Conservation and Utilization Support Program” conducted by the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation (Chair, Kim Junghee), under the auspices of the Korea Heritage Service. These two items were brought back to Korea in October 2023 and underwent conservation treatment for more than a year.
The folding screens have passed through multiple hands since their production. They suffered significant soiling and damage in numerous places over that extensive length of time, and they were variously altered during repairs done to them previously. The present preservation treatment work has breathed new life into the paintings, bringing them back as closely as possible to their original appearance. Now, the Korean public has an opportunity to view them before they are returned to the United States.
The ten-panel Cloud Dream of the Nine folding screen, now in the Portland Art Museum collection, features scenes taken from a novel of the same name, authored by Kim Man-jung (金萬重 1637-1692). The tale was written at the end of the 17th century and was widely loved by the Koreans of Joseon, from royal family members down to everyday people. Folding screens depicting the story’s highlights continued to be popular through the 20th century. The panel sequence begins with the scene of Seong-jin (性眞), a disciple of Grand Preceptor Yuk-gwan (六觀大師), when he encounters eight celestial maidens. The following panels depicts how the young monk is reincarnated in the secular world as Yang So-yu (楊少遊) and enjoys great wealth and honor.
The final panel shows Seong-jin waking up from a nap and realizing that all the successes and ambitions he had just witnessed were nothing but an empty dream. He then returns to his original status as a novice monk. The paintings present the story’s original message about being a devout Buddhist, and at the same time they carry a meaning of good luck, projecting the desire for a successful life of wealth, honor, good fortune and pleasure.
The received story about the folding screen’s provenance asserts as follows: The parents of an Ewha Haktang student gifted this folding screen to Marie Elizabeth Church while she was in Korea teaching at the missionary school around 1910. Ms. Church took it back to the United States after she completed her Korean mission. Eventually, the folding screen was given to a family friend, and her daughter, Jacqueline Z. Boyd, donated the piece to the current collection at the Portland Art Museum.
However, the present conservation treatment work uncovered a 1913 document related to the Royal Ancestral Shrine (Jongmyo), draft sketches of a dragon, and newspaper (The Chosun Daily, KoreaJoongAng Daily) pages dated 1933. Apparently, these were used as backing paper as part of repair work that was performed before the folding screen was taken to the US. In addition, the sequence of the scenes had been altered, and did not follow the storyline in certain places. The original fabric used in the mounting had been replaced by material imported from the West. Therefore, the conservators this time rearranged the painting sequence to match the story, and they referenced the remaining scraps of original fabric to restore the mounting as closely as possible to the way it looked then the folding screen was first made. The edges of the paintings had also been covered over by the mounting material, but the remounting has widened the visible area of each painting by about 2.5 centimeters.
*Chang-hwang, mounting : The work of decorating a calligraphic work or painting with silk or paper and mounting it in on a scroll, in an album or on a folding screen.
The One Hundred Boys at Play folding screen, now in the Denver Art Museum’s collection, features paintings of young boys peacefully engaged in various recreational activities. The character for “one hundred” (百baek) in the title suggests abundant and numerous. Thus, the artworks impart lucky symbolism related to traditional wishes for male offspring and thriving progeny. Luxurious palatial structures appear in the background as the boys are depicted pretending to be military generals, watching roosters fight, playing with a monkey, plucking plum blossoms, and so on. Such scenes express the age-old parental desire for many sons as well as wishes to be selected for government office and to enjoy abundance and prosperity. The One Hundred Boys at Play series was a leading form of auspicious art that was displayed at royal weddings and palace banquets. The tradition spread to the everyday population as well, and these folding screens were used to adorn residential spaces.
The Denver Art Museum purchased this particular piece from New York-based Felice Fedder Oriental Art, Inc. in 1970. How the artwork got from Korea to the United States is unknown. Part of the recent preservation work involved removing the paintings from their frames, and pages from 1960 editions of Japan’s Maeil Shinmun newspaper(Mainichi Daily)were discovered stuck to those frames. This suggests the folding screen had been produced in the late 19th or early 20th century, repaired in or shortly after 1960, and then taken to the United States.
Before the conservation treatment process began, the One Hundred Boys at Play folding screen was found to have stains and damage in various places, and traces of recoated paint and previous repair work were clearly visible. The damage was mostly concentrated in the areas covered with green fabric; the natural pigment (atacamite) originally applied had been painted over with an artificial pigment (chrome green). The conservators this time removed as much of the artificial pigment as possible and filled in the gaps with new fabric. They referred to the colors and styling of folding screens from 19th century Joseon to mount the paintings anew, making this one look like the One Hundred Boys at Play folding screens from the late 19th century.
This special exhibition offers people in Korea to get the first look at the Cloud Dream of the Nine and One Hundred Boys at Play folding screens since their restoration by Korean conservation treatment professionals, before they are returned to the United States. Going forward, the Korea Heritage Service and the National Palace Museum of Korea will continue to host exhibitions designed to broadly share Korean cultural heritage artifacts kept overseas as well as to inform the public on Korean history and culture generally.