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Lot Essay
This trompe l'oeil still life painting shows off a Confucian scholar's collection displayed on a bookcase or curio cabinet rendered in a startling mixture of Eastern and Western systems of perspective. There are books, bronzes (some of them with incense implements for the rituals of ancestor worship), boxes of various kinds, porcelain flower vases, lacquer and bowls of fruit, writing paraphernalia (rolled scrolls of paper, brushes, ink stone and ink stick), clocks, and a glass fishbowl, among other things. There is literary evidence for the tradition of ch'aekkori from at the least the late eighteenth century. Screens of this subject became a popular status symbol after King Chongjo (r. 1776-1800) placed one behind his desk in the men's quarters of the palace.
There are two seals on the screen introduced here (far left panel, second shelf from the top; far right panel, top). They are cleverly shown as the upturned ends of actual carved stone seals concealed within the bookcase: the far left seal reads Songhaeng Doin. Recent scholarship his turned up four trompe l'oeil ch'aekkori screens bearing the seal of a professional court artist active in the mid-nineteenth century, Yi Ungnok (Yi Hyungnok, 1808-after 1874), and a fifth by his follower Kang Talsu (active ca. 1875-1900). Remarkably, no two display stands in this type of screen are alike. The screen shown here is closely related to an eight-panel screen from the Dongwon Collection acquired by the National Museum of Korea, Seoul, in 1969.
For a full discussion of ch'aekkori screens see Kay E. Black and Edward W. Wagner, "Court Style Ch'aekkori," Hopes and Aspirations: Decorative painting of Korea, exh. cat. (San Francisco: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1998): 21-35; also Black and Wagner, "Ch'aekkori paintings: A Korean Jigsaw Puzzle," Archives of Asian Art 46 (1993): 63-75.
For another ch'aekkori screen by Yi Ungnok in the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, see Korean Arts of the Eighteenth Century: Splendor & Simplicity, exh. cat. (New York: The Asia Society Galleries, 1993), pl. 32.
Previously sold in these Rooms, 23 March, 1999, lot 305
There are two seals on the screen introduced here (far left panel, second shelf from the top; far right panel, top). They are cleverly shown as the upturned ends of actual carved stone seals concealed within the bookcase: the far left seal reads Songhaeng Doin. Recent scholarship his turned up four trompe l'oeil ch'aekkori screens bearing the seal of a professional court artist active in the mid-nineteenth century, Yi Ungnok (Yi Hyungnok, 1808-after 1874), and a fifth by his follower Kang Talsu (active ca. 1875-1900). Remarkably, no two display stands in this type of screen are alike. The screen shown here is closely related to an eight-panel screen from the Dongwon Collection acquired by the National Museum of Korea, Seoul, in 1969.
For a full discussion of ch'aekkori screens see Kay E. Black and Edward W. Wagner, "Court Style Ch'aekkori," Hopes and Aspirations: Decorative painting of Korea, exh. cat. (San Francisco: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1998): 21-35; also Black and Wagner, "Ch'aekkori paintings: A Korean Jigsaw Puzzle," Archives of Asian Art 46 (1993): 63-75.
For another ch'aekkori screen by Yi Ungnok in the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, see Korean Arts of the Eighteenth Century: Splendor & Simplicity, exh. cat. (New York: The Asia Society Galleries, 1993), pl. 32.
Previously sold in these Rooms, 23 March, 1999, lot 305