Lot Essay
One of the principal duties of Choson Period (1392-1910) court artists was to paint screens commemorating important palace ceremonies. While these court artists often signed their landscape paintings and sometimes signed their portraits of government officials, they were forbidden by royal edict from signing their court screens, so such screens are always anonymous.
Palace-ceremony screens frequently bear lengthy inscriptions, which usually occupy the last (the left) panel. The inscription names the occasion, gives the date, and provides a list of the most important officials who attended the ceremony. Because the present screen has no inscription, one can only speculate as to the exact nature of the royal ceremony taking place.
One of the conventions followed in this type of screen is that the king (or queen, queen-mother, prince, or princess) is never depicted, his or her person being considered too august to be rendered in paint. The presence of the royal personage is indicated by an empty throne.
"Scenes of the Wedding of King Honjong", an eight-panel court screen belonging to Dong-A University Museum in Pusan, bears an inscription containing a date equivalent to 1844*. The drawing style, colors and compositional layout of the Pusan screen are nearly identical to those of the present screen. Both screens take place in an around almost identical palace pavilions, walled courtyards, roofed gates, and subsidiary pavilions. This architectural setting presumably represents a section of the Yi royal family's principal residence, the sprawling Ch'angdok Palace in Seoul. In both screens, rice paddies, trees, and steep hills appear to the right of the palace buildings, while clouds fill in the background above. Arrayed in rows, either standing or bowing, are the figures of civil officials in court attire, military officials in ceremonial armor, standard bearers, archers, guards armed with matchlock muskets, guards holding halberds, and various attendants. As in many, but not all, screens of court ceremonies, the facial features of the tiny figures are not indicated.
The only significant difference between the two screens is that the Dong-A University version has a long inscription that fills up the right and left panels. As if to compensate for the lack of inscription, the landscape setting of the present screen has been expanded so as to occupy two righthand panels instead of one, and the courtyards to the left have been expanded so as to occupy three panels instead of two. Perhaps the present screen originally had ten panels; such as format was not uncommon for Korean screens.
It has been suggested that the Yi court did not commission more than one screen per ceremony. If this were true, the present screen could not depict King Honjong's wedding. However, more than one version of other screens are extant depicting important royal ceremonies. Since Yi kings maintained subsidiary palaces in several parts of Korea, it seems likely that more than one screen of an important ceremony would have been commissioned, so that screens commemorating major events could be displayed in government buildings in different parts of Korea at the same time.
*Ahn Hwi-joon, The National Treasures of Korea, Volume 10, Paintings (Seoul, 1989), pl. 183 and fig. 140.
Palace-ceremony screens frequently bear lengthy inscriptions, which usually occupy the last (the left) panel. The inscription names the occasion, gives the date, and provides a list of the most important officials who attended the ceremony. Because the present screen has no inscription, one can only speculate as to the exact nature of the royal ceremony taking place.
One of the conventions followed in this type of screen is that the king (or queen, queen-mother, prince, or princess) is never depicted, his or her person being considered too august to be rendered in paint. The presence of the royal personage is indicated by an empty throne.
"Scenes of the Wedding of King Honjong", an eight-panel court screen belonging to Dong-A University Museum in Pusan, bears an inscription containing a date equivalent to 1844*. The drawing style, colors and compositional layout of the Pusan screen are nearly identical to those of the present screen. Both screens take place in an around almost identical palace pavilions, walled courtyards, roofed gates, and subsidiary pavilions. This architectural setting presumably represents a section of the Yi royal family's principal residence, the sprawling Ch'angdok Palace in Seoul. In both screens, rice paddies, trees, and steep hills appear to the right of the palace buildings, while clouds fill in the background above. Arrayed in rows, either standing or bowing, are the figures of civil officials in court attire, military officials in ceremonial armor, standard bearers, archers, guards armed with matchlock muskets, guards holding halberds, and various attendants. As in many, but not all, screens of court ceremonies, the facial features of the tiny figures are not indicated.
The only significant difference between the two screens is that the Dong-A University version has a long inscription that fills up the right and left panels. As if to compensate for the lack of inscription, the landscape setting of the present screen has been expanded so as to occupy two righthand panels instead of one, and the courtyards to the left have been expanded so as to occupy three panels instead of two. Perhaps the present screen originally had ten panels; such as format was not uncommon for Korean screens.
It has been suggested that the Yi court did not commission more than one screen per ceremony. If this were true, the present screen could not depict King Honjong's wedding. However, more than one version of other screens are extant depicting important royal ceremonies. Since Yi kings maintained subsidiary palaces in several parts of Korea, it seems likely that more than one screen of an important ceremony would have been commissioned, so that screens commemorating major events could be displayed in government buildings in different parts of Korea at the same time.
*Ahn Hwi-joon, The National Treasures of Korea, Volume 10, Paintings (Seoul, 1989), pl. 183 and fig. 140.