Un paravent de Kim Hong-do au musée Guimet, à Paris

Abstract

There are two screens on scène de genre at the musée Guimet in Paris. Checked against the collections of Seoul, the first one can be attributed to the painter Kim Yang-gi (1770–1842). The second one is signed by the painter Kim Hong-do (1745–1814). This one is directly echoed in the screen of the National Museum of Korea dated 1778. In both cases, three panels depict identical subjects. To compare the two screens of Kim Hong-do, the one from Paris and the one from Seoul, the first is a fraction more delicate and, compared with known and dated works of Kim Hong-do, looks older. The conservation has confirmed the fact, since behind the mounting of the 19th century there is another one of the 18th century, giving the exact order of the panels of Paris. This one must already have been known in the Chosŏn period (1392–1910), since there is a replica at the National Museum of Korea. The screen of Kim Hong-do in Paris testifies to the period before the reign of King Chŏngjo (r. 1776– 1800), a moment when Korea opened to the “Movement of Light,” curious about foreign countries, sensitive through Pekin to western influence: an echo of court art and of the tradition of the Painting Academy.