Cleveland Museum of Art

Books and Scholars’ Accoutrements

Yi Taek-gyun

Date

late 1800s

Medium

ten-panel folding screen; ink and color on silk

Culture

Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)

Department

Korean Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

First produced around the second half of the eighteenth century, chaekgado (literally, “pictures of bookshelves”) flourished throughout the 1800s as a royal emblem. And soon this pictorial genre became a popular furnishing item for aristocrats' elegant studies. The third panel from the right bears a hidden seal that reveals the artist: Yi Taek-gyun, a prominent court artist active in the late 1800s. A convincing hypothesis that connects the Korean chaekgado tradition with the Renaissance tradition of illusionistic studiolo through the technique of trompe-l'œil and Chinese Qing period treasured cabinet paintings was first made in Park Shim-eun's thesis (2002).

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