• Conservation Science in Museum
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• v.29
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• pp.1-32
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• 2023

The Paintings of a 60^th Wedding Anniversary Ceremony Created by an Unknown Painter (Deoksu 6375), housed by the National Museum of Korea, is a five-panel painting book depicting scenes from a wedding ceremony. Hoehonrye is a type of repeated wedding ceremony to commemorate a couple's 60th wedding anniversary with congratulations from the community. The paintings of the book record five scenes from the wedding: jeoninrye, a ceremony where the groom brings a wooden wild goose to the bride's house; gyoberye, the groom and the bride bowing to each other; heosurye, pouring liquor to toast to the couple's longevity; jeopbin, offering tea to guests; and a banquet to celebrates the couple's 60th wedding anniversary. The book describes figures, buildings and a variety of items in detail with delicate brushstrokes. The techniques were examined using microscopy, infrared, and X-ray irradiation and hyperspectral imaging analysis. The invisible parts were examined to identify the rough sketch and distinguish pigments and dyes used for each color. The components of the pigments were determined by X-ray fluorescence analysis, while the dyes were identified by UV-vis spectrometry. Microscope observation revealed that the fabric used for the paintings was raw silk thread with almost no fiber twist, and plain silk fabric. Hyperspectral imaging analysis, X-ray fluorescence analysis, and UV-vis spectrometry confirmed that the white pigment was white lead and the black was chinese ink. The red pigments were using red clay, cinnabar, and a mixture of cinnabar and minium. Brown was made using red clay and organic dyes, and yellow using gamboge. Green was identified as indigo, malachite, chrome green, barium sulfide, and blue as azurite, smalt, and indigo. The purple dye was estimated as a mixture of indigo and cochineal, and gold parts were used gold powder. Hyperspectral images were distinguished parts damaged and conservation treatment area.

• MISULJARYO - National Museum of Korea Art Journal
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• v.96
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• pp.224-238
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• 2019

In commemoration of the 1,100th anniversary of the foundation of the Goryeo Dynasty, the National Museum of Korea and the National Institute of Korean History are working together on a project to reveal memorial inscriptions(墓誌銘) in the Goryeo Dynasty. So far, It founded that four newly identified memorial inscriptions of Goryeo Dynasty. Among them, I would like to introduce two memorial inscriptions in overseas and a memory inscription that was first identified as being housed in the National Museum of Korea. Kim Yong Sik's memorial inscription is currently housed at the Smithsonian Museum's FreerSackler Gallery in the U.S.A.. Kim Yong Sik(金龍軾, 1129~1197) is a bureaucrat in the middle time of Goryeo Dynasty. He came from a family of influential people in the Andong province. In Goryeo times, provincial figures have been able to make inroads into central politics through the bureaucratic select examination(科擧). Kim's family came from the capital of Goryeo in that way. However, Kim did not rise very high. This inscription is meaningful in that it shows this ordinary middle class's life to study Goryeo history further. Sangdanghyeongoon(上黨縣君) Gwak Ssi's memorial inscription is currently housed at the Kyoto university museum in the Japan. Sangdanghyeongoon Gwak Ssi(郭氏(Mrs. Gwak), ?~1149?) is a bureaucrat class woman in the middle time of Goryeo Dynasty. There is not much information about her. But the method of marking the location of the her tomb is unique. Her tomb is located at the northern foot of the temple, Baekhaksa(白鶴寺, White Crane's temple). That marking method is sometimes confirmed in Goryeo period's historical text. This inscription is significant in that it shows practical example of that methods. Min Su's memorial inscription is missing after Japanese occupation time, but confirmed that currently housed in the National Museum of Korea. Min Su(閔脩, 1067~1122) is a bureaucrat in the middle time of Goryeo Dynasty. Although his track record is partly recorded in Goryeosa(高麗史, Historia of Goryeo Dynasty), the discovery of this inscription has made new research possible. I hope that more and more memory inscription of Goryeo will emerge from somewhere and contribute greatly to the study of Goryeo history.

• Bangmulgwan gwa yeongu (The National Museum of Korea Journal)
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• v.1
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• pp.278-305
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• 2024

Gelatin dry plate photographs dating to the Japanese colonial era and the official documents from the Japanese Government-General of Korea Museum in the collection of the National Museum of Korea are significant materials documenting cultural heritage in North Korea before it was severely damaged in 1950 during the Korean War. There has been an increase in recent years in studies of Buddhist sculptures in North Korea based on these photographs and documents. This paper presents some new comments on the Buddhist sculptures at Seongbulsa Temple in Hwangju, one of the most famous temples in Hwanghae-do Province, based on the related existing research outcomes. This paper aims to facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of the Buddhist sculptures at Seongbulsa Temple by chronicling its history based on historical records, examining its current status, and exploring in detail the production dates and backgrounds of the Buddhist sculptures featured on gelatin dry plates. Prior to Korea's liberation from Japan in 1945, Seongbulsa housed at least seven sculptural items: two Bodhisattva statues, four Buddha statues, and a triad. Two items are from the early Goryeo period, one is from the late Goryeo period, three are from the early Joseon period, and one is from the late Joseon period. Among them, two surviving items are noteworthy. One is the early Goryeo-era Stone Seated Bhaishajyaguru Buddha photographed in Eungjinjeon Hall at Seongbulsa Temple. A close examination of a schematic drawing of the sculpture's pedestal made at the time it was photographed reveals that its material accords with the materials used for the headless Stone Seated Bhaishajyaguru Buddha and pedestal currently found in the old Sangwonam Hermitage site in the Inner Geumgang Valley of Jeongbangsan Mountain. This accordance could mean that the statue is a new significant example of early Goryeo Buddhist sculpture in North Korea. The other notable sculpture is the Gilt-bronze Seated Amitabha Buddha Triad created in 1454 (the second year of the reign of King Danjong) and discovered in Geungnakjeon Hall at Seongbulsa. This statue is currently in the collection of the Sariwon History Museum in Hwanghae-do Province. It is an important example of a dated small gilt-bronze Buddhist statue from the early Joseon period found in North Korea. This paper is a case study of Buddhist sculptures in North Korea, focusing on Seongbulsa Temple. Further utilization of the National Museum of Korea's gelatin dry plates will contribute to developing the study of the history of Korean Buddhist sculpture.

• Bangmulgwan gwa yeongu (The National Museum of Korea Journal)
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• v.1
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• pp.258-277
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• 2024

Kings of the Joseon Dynasty composed poems exploring their thinking about the governance of the country or personal feelings. Kings Taejong (r. 1400-1418), Seongjong (r. 1469-1494), Yeongjo (r. 1724-1776), and other kings bestowed poems upon their officials and had them compose response poems using rhyming words. Such literary exchanges between sovereign and subject were called gaengjin. The vast body of surviving materials related to gaengjin includes chronological materials recording the words and acts of kings, Yeolseong oeje compiling writings by Joseon kings, the so-called gaengjin albums that kings specially produced to commemorate officials' composition of response poems, and literary collections by officials who took part in the composition of response poems. Gaengjin albums were produced immediately after the king's bestowal of a poem and the officials' composition of response poems. They provide diverse information about the background, content, and participants of literary exchanges. Many of these albums are held in the collection of the National Museum of Korea, Gyujanggak Archives at Seoul National University, and Jangseogak Archives of the Academy of Korean Studies. A majority of the extant gaengjin albums were produced during the reign of King Yeongjo. This paper analyzed chronological materials on the gaengjin literary exchanges that were officially conducted 200 times during the fifty-two-year reign of King Yeongjo. It also explored the drastic increase in gaengjin literary exchanges between 1769 (the forty-fifth year of the reign of King Yeongjo) and 1776 (the fifty-second year of the reign of King Yeongjo), the period corresponding to King Yeongjo's latter years. The paper introduced sixteen items (albums, books, hanging boards, and folding screens) related to the gaengjin literary exchanges held in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from the collection of the National Museum of Korea. Among them, it shed light on the production backgrounds, contents, and characteristics of the eight gaengjin albums produced during the reign of King Yeongjo. The materials related to the gaengjin literary exchanges created during the reign of King Yeongjo are valuable in that they improve the understanding of various aspects of the respective period, including joyous events of the state (or royal court), the administration of state affairs, and literary activities among the sovereign and subjects.

• Conservation Science in Museum
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• v.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 1999

The responsibility of keeping and caring of unearthed cultural properties belongs to the National Museum according to cultural properties protection law(law No.3644). So unearthed cultural properties are possessed by the museum after going through the regular course. Number of those cultural properties is increasing swiftly. Every year more than ten thousand units of cultural properties are unearthed. The number of unearthed cultural properties is expected to increase in the future. Howeve, the keeping facilities of the National Museum are already over-saturated. So many unearthed cultural properties are being entrusted to university museums that have bad facilities and few personnel. It makes many problems including inadequate caring. More pressing problem is that those cultural properties are not under the protection of scientific conservation processing and caring. The reason is that there are so few conservation scientists in Korea. There is no independent department of conservation science even in the National Museum, where only five members are working as conservation experts. To solve those problems, new system and organization which win take charge of conservation and care of cultural properties, that is, an organization which will consist of scientific keeping facilities and expert personnel (conservation scientists) is needed immediately.

• MISULJARYO - National Museum of Korea Art Journal
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• v.96
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• pp.239-260
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• 2019

This paper examines the circulation and dissemination of painting during and after the nineteenth century through a case study on the One Hundred Fans paintings produced as decorative folding screens at the time. One Hundred Fans paintings refer to depictions of layers of fans in various shapes on which pictures of diverse themes are drawn. Fans and paintings on fans were depicted on paintings before the nineteenth century. However, it was in the nineteenth century that they began to be applied as subject matter for decorative paintings. Reflecting the trend of enjoying extravagant hobbies, fans and paintings on fans were mainly produced as folding screens. The folding screen of One Hundred Fans from the collection of the Museum am Rothenbaum Kulturen und Künste der Welt (hereafter Rothenbaum Museum) in Germany was first introduced to Korean in the exhibition The City in Art, Art in the City held at the National Museum of Korea in 2016. Each panel in this six-panel folding screen features more than five different fans painted with diverse topics. This folding screen is of particular significance since the National Museum of Korea holds the original drawings. In the nineteenth century, calligraphy and painting that had formerly been enjoyed by Joseon royal family members and the nobility in private spaces began to spread among common people and was distributed through markets. In accordance with the trend of adorning households, colorful decorative paintings were preferred, leading to the popularization of the production of One Hundred Fans folding screens with pictures in different shapes and themes. A majority of the Korean collection in the Rothenbaum Museum belonged to Heinrich Constantin Eduard Meyer(1841~1926), a German businessman who served as the Joseon consul general in Germany. From the late 1890s until 1905, Meyer traveled back and forth between Joseon and Germany and collected a wide range of Korean artifacts. After returning to Germany, he sequentially donated his collections, including One Hundred Fans, to the Rothenbaum Museum. Folding screens like One Hundred Fans with their fresh and decorative beauty may have attracted the attention of foreigners living in Joseon. The One Hundred Fans at the Rothenbaum Museum is an intriguing work in that during its treatment, a piece of paper with the inscription of the place name "Donghyeon" was found pasted upside down on the back of the second panel. Donghyeon was situated in between Euljiro 1-ga and Euljiro 2-ga in present-day Seoul. During the Joseon Dynasty, a domestic handicraft industry boomed in the area based on licensed shops and government offices, including the Dohwaseo (Royal Bureau of Painting), Hyeminseo (Royal Bureau of Public Dispensary), and Jangagwon (Royal Bureau of Music). In fact, in the early 1900s, shops selling calligraphy and painting existed in Donghyeon. Thus, it is very likely that the shops where Meyer purchased his collection of calligraphy and painting were located in Donghyeon. The six-panel folding screen One Hundred Fans in the collection of the Rothenbaum Museum is thought to have acquired its present form during a process of restoring Korean artifacts works in the 1980s. The original drawings of One Hundred Fans currently housed in the National Museum of Korea was acquired by the National Folk Museum of Korea between 1945 and 1950. Among the seven drawings of the painting, six indicate the order of their panels in the margins, which relates that the painting was originally an eight-panel folding screen. Each drawing shows more than five different fans. The details of these fans, including small decorations and patterns on the ribs, are realistically depicted. The names of the colors to be applied, including 'red ocher', 'red', 'ink', and 'blue', are written on most of the fans, while some are left empty or 'oil' is indicated on them. Ten fans have sketches of flowers, plants, and insects or historical figures. A comparison between these drawings and the folding screen of One Hundred Fans at the Rothenbaum Museum has revealed that their size and proportion are identical. This shows that the Rothenbaum Museum painting follows the directions set forth in the original drawings. The fans on the folding screen of One Hundred Fans at the Rothenbaum Museum are painted with images on diverse themes, including landscapes, narrative figures, birds and flowers, birds and animals, plants and insects, and fish and crabs. In particular, flowers and butterflies and fish and crabs were popular themes favored by nineteenth century Joseon painters. It is noteworthy that the folding screen One Hundred Fans at the Rothenbaum Museum includes several scenes recalling the typical painting style of Kim Hong-do, unlike other folding screens of One Hundred Fans or Various Paintings and Calligraphy. As a case in point, the theme of "Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden" is depicted in the Rothenbaum folding screen even though it is not commonly included in folding screens of One Hundred Fans or One Hundred Paintings due to spatial limitations. The scene of "Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden" in the Rothenbaum folding screen bears a resemblance to Kim Hong-do's folding screen of Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden at the National Museum of Korea in terms of its composition and style. Moreover, a few scenes on the Rothenbaum folding screen are similar to examples in the Painting Album of Byeongjin Year produced by Kim Hong-do in 1796. The painter who drew the fan paintings on the Rothenbaum folding screen is presumed to have been influenced by Kim Hong-do since the fan paintings of a landscape similar to Sainsam Rock, an Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden, and a Pair of Pheasants are all reminiscent of Kim's style. These paintings in the style of Kim Hong-do are reproduced on the fans left empty in the original drawings. The figure who produced both the original drawings and fan paintings appears to have been a professional painter influenced by Kim Hong-do. He might have appreciated Kim's Painting Album of Byeongjin Year or created duplicates of Painting Album of Byeongjin Year for circulation in the art market. We have so far identified about ten folding screens remaining with the One Hundred Fans. The composition of these folding screens are similar each other except for a slight difference in the number and proportion of the fans or reversed left and right sides of the fans. Such uniform composition can be also found in the paintings of scholar's accoutrements in the nineteenth century. This suggests that the increasing demand for calligraphy and painting in the nineteenth century led to the application of manuals for the mass production of decorative paintings. As the demand for colorful decorative folding screens with intricate designs increased from the nineteenth century, original drawings began to be used as models for producing various paintings. These were fully utilized when making large-scale folding screens with images such as Guo Ziyi's Enjoyment-of-Life Banquet, Banquet of the Queen Mother of the West, One Hundred Children, and the Sun, Cranes and Heavenly Peaches, all of which entailed complicated patterns. In fact, several designs repeatedly emerge in the extant folding screens, suggesting the use of original drawings as models. A tendency toward using original drawings as models for producing folding screens in large quantities in accordance with market demand is reflected in the production of the folding screens of One Hundred Fans filled with fans in different shapes and fan paintings on diverse themes. In the case of the folding screens of One Hundred Paintings, bordering frames are drawn first and then various paintings are executed inside the frames. In folding screens of One Hundred Fans, however, fans in diverse forms were drawn first. Accordingly, it must have been difficult to produce them in bulk. Existing examples are relatively fewer than other folding screens. As discussed above, the folding screen of One Hundred Fans at the Rothenbaum Museum and its original drawings at the National Museum of Korea aptly demonstrate the late Joseon painting trend of embracing and employing new painting styles. Further in-depth research into the Rothenbaum painting is required in that it is a rare example exhibiting the influence of Kim Hong-do compared to other paintings on the theme of One Hundred Fans whose composition and painting style are more similar to those found in the work of Bak Gi-jun.

• Conservation Science in Museum
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• v.6
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• pp.39-46
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• 2005

The National Museum of Korea has a collection of various materials. In particular, items made from organic materials such as wood, paper, and leather are vulnerable to the influence of insects and germs, requiring fumigation as well as pesticides and bactericides. The influence of pesticides and bactericides on the change in dyed paper was examined by applying the oddy test used to confirm the toxicity of various materials used in museums. Results revealed that the products of B and H companies had the least influence on the change in dyed paper. On the other hand, the result of the examination of cochineal and curcuma dyed paper revealed a significant change in the control group compared to the one exposed together with dyed paper, probably because of humidity rather than the sample.

• MISULJARYO - National Museum of Korea Art Journal
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• v.96
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• pp.181-208
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• 2019

This paper presents a new classification and code system on the Archives of the Government-general Museum of Joseon in the National Museum of Korea. Three points were noted that since the Museum belonged to the Government-general of Joseon, the classification system of the Archives should be established to comply with the Archives system of the Government-general of Joseon; based on the concept of the functional provenance, it is necessary to establish a classification system in accordance with the organization structure of the Government-general Museum of Joseon; a systematic and simple classification codes should be given based on the classification system to improve the convenience of searching and using the official document. The classification system and its code are proposed in the order of major function, medium function, small function, and detailed function. The major function of the Archives is 'A-Educational affairs', medium function 'Museum.' The small function may be divided into General affairs (01), Temple (02), Scenic Spot and Natural Monument (03), Historical Site (04), and Museum (05). The detailed function and detailed sub-functions are categorized by the various work assignments in each work units. I hope that this new classification system will make a contribution to organizing and utilizing the Archives of the Government-general Museum of Joseon in the National Museum of Korea.

• Conservation Science in Museum
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• v.9
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• pp.67-83
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• 2008

This study is process of conservation treatment for textiles and custumes containing Jikgeum(weave with supplementary golden wefts) and Bugeum(Gold sticking) among excavated ones(including all of Sinsu751) of Cheongyeongunju (a princess) collected by the National Museum of Korea. Adhesive strength was reinforced by coating 2% solution of glue on layer of gold disintegrated in the course of depletion of gold(Au) on the surface after conducting nondestructive test(X-ray fluorescent analysis) of flat gold strip and gold sticking. To remove dust on the surface and polluted materials, dry cleaning through vacuum suction and spray-type wet cleaning were conducted simultaneously and damaged part was restored to recover the relics to original state.

• Conservation Science in Museum
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• v.12
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• pp.53-58
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• 2011

This study investigated ingredient of the pigment of wall painting piece of women parade of Gaemachong Goguryo that the National Museum of Korea kept. XRF, a non-destructive analyzer, was used to investigate ingredient of the pigment. At the analysis, not only cinnabar/ vermillion(HgS) but also hematiae(Fe₂O₃) was used to produce red, and carbon was done to produce black, and lead white was done to produce white. The face was painted by mixture of not only cinnabar/ vermillion but also hematiae: No coloring was done depending upon situation.