Cleveland Museum of Art

Portrait of a Government Official

Chae Yongshin

Date

1921

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk

Culture

Korea, Japanese colonial period (1910−1945)

Department

Korean Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Wearing a dark green court uniform, a man is seated in a chair covered with a leopard skin, a gift from the royal court to a newly appointed officer. The embroidered rank badge with a design of a single flying crane identifies the sitter’s bureaucratic status: the third ranked officer. In this work, the painter Chae Yongshin (1848–1941) rendered a newly promoted government official's shy smile, giving a glimpse into his mixed feelings of confidence and anxiety about his future professional career. It was European photography introduced to Korea in the end of the 1800s that most inspired Chae’s naturalistic approach to his subject.

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