Page 250 - Christies Japanese and Korean Art Sept 22 2020 NYC

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ANONYMOUS (17TH CENTURY)
Gathering of Officials from the Office of the Inspector-General
Colophon signed Dong'gang Ju'in (In Sin Ikjeon; 1605-1660)
Hanging scoll; ink on silk
13¬ x 22º in. (34.6 x 56.5 cm.)
$20,000-30,000

This small but intriguing painting depicts a gathering of officials The painting itself is not signed, nor is the artist’s name recorded,
from the Joseon-dynasty’s Office of the Inspector-General. It so its authorship remains unknown. Even so, the colophon—which
belongs to a category of Joseon paintings known gyehoedo 契 is contemporaneous with the painting and describes the event
會圖, which record social gatherings of government officials in depicted—was written by the mid-Joseon official and literary figure
Seoul, the capital. Gyehoedo paintings are valuable for the light Sin Ikjeon 申翊全, who signed it with his sobriquet, or ho 號,
they shed both on the custom of convening such social gatherings Dong’gang Ju’in 東江主人, his signature appearing at the text’s
during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries and far left edge. The colophon lacks a date, but as Sin Ikjeon died in
on the associated custom of documenting those gatherings with 1660, it logically can be assumed both that the gathering took place
paintings. Rare in collections outside Korea, such paintings are as in the mid-seventeenth century and that the painting and colophon
much illustrated historical documents as works of art and are the are contemporaneous with the gathering itself.
equivalent of today’s documentary photographs of official events.
The earliest known paintings on this particular theme were both
In fact, several types of gyehoedo paintings were done during the done in 1591 and are now in private collections in Korea, though
Joseon dynasty 朝鮮朝 (1392–1910) recording various types of they have been exhibited in the Horim Museum, Seoul, 湖林博
gatherings of officials, as evinced by several scrolls in the collection 物館 and in the Naju National Museum in Naju, South Jeolla
of the National Museum of Korea, Seoul 韓國國立中央博物館 province 全羅南道羅州市國立羅州博物館. Yi Jeong’hui 李庭
(for example, museum numbers Sinsu 2234 and Sinsu 13556). On 檜 (1542–1612) once owned one—or possibly both—of those
18 April 2018 Christie’s, New York, sold another type of Korean paintings and gives mention in his diary, Songgan Ilgi 松澗日
social-gathering painting, a sixteenth- to seventeenth-century 記—the name of the diary incorporating Yi’s sobriquet, or ho 號,
scroll of a gathering of retired government officials, known as a Songgan 松澗—thus providing early documentary evidence of such
as Giyeonghoedo painting 耆英會圖. Two other paintings in the paintings.
National Museum of Korea, Seoul, that represent gatherings of
retired officials date to the mid-1580s and are visually similar to Usually in hanging scroll format 立軸, paintings depicting a
the painting that Christie’s sold (Dongwon 2910 and Sinsu 14888). Gathering of Officials from the Office of the Inspector-General
At present, the earliest known gyehoedo painting is the Gathering typically feature government buildings with tiled roofs within a
of Twenty-three Officials 二十三霜臺會圖, which is dated to walled compound, the scene set against a backdrop of mountains
1487 and is now in the collection Gyeonggi Provincial Museum, and with trees at either side of the compound, often with willows
Yong’in, Gyeonggi province 京畿道龍仁市京畿道博物館. at the (viewer’s) left, pines or deciduous trees at the right, and
the occasional pine in the background. A few officials usually
This particular painting represents a Gathering of Officials from appear seated in one of the government buildings, and often
the Office of the Inspector-General 驄馬契圖, or Chongmagye another official is shown arriving at the front gate on a donkey,
Do. Formally known as the Saheonbu 司憲府, the Office of the while attended by servants and facing a figure prostrate before
Inspector-General was often called the Chongma 驄馬. In writing him, perhaps a junior official or a government functionary. The
below the painting, Sin Ikjeon 申翊全 (1605–1660) used the latter officials seated in the government hall and their colleague arriving
term, Chongma, in the title of his colophon Je Chongmagye Do 題 on the donkey do not wear brightly colored robes or rank badges;
驄馬契圖, which means “Colophon on a Painting of a Gathering rather, they wear silk official robes appropriate to their station and
of Officials from the Office of the Inspector-General.” (The black jeongak bokdu hats 展脚幞頭 of woven horse hair with
colophon is the column of five characters at the far right edge of stiffened strips that project laterally from the sides. The figures’
the text.) small size in such paintings recalls that of figures in seventeenth-