Portrait of Jeong Mong-ju (2011)

Jeong Mong-ju (鄭夢周, 1337–1392) was a civil official and scholar of the late Goryeo period. His clan seat was Yeongil and his pen name was Poeun. After placing first in the state examination in 1360, the ninth year of King Gongmin, he held posts including third minister of the Board of Rites, chancellor of the National Academy, Grand Academician, and second state councillor. In 1389 he joined Yi Seong-gye in enthroning King Gongyang, but on learning that Jo Jun, Jeong Do-jeon and others were planning to have Yi Seong-gye placed on the throne, he attempted to remove them and was instead killed by Yi Bang-won at Seonjukgyo Bridge. On the left side of the portrait is an inscription, partly illegible, reading 'Jiajing ... Gobon' (嘉靖 ... 皐本), and on the right, 'Poeun ... Portrait' (圃隱 ... 像). Referring to the Poeunjip (Collected Works of Poeun), the heading is thought to have originally read 'Gajeong eulmyo Imgobon' (嘉靖乙卯臨皐本), suggesting that this is a copy made in 1555, the tenth year of King Myeongjong. According to the entry on portraits in the Poeunjip (volume 2, leaf 8), the first portrait of Jeong Mong-ju was made in 1390, the second year of King Gongyang of Goryeo, when he was named a Jwamyeong gongsin (Merit Subject for Assisting the Enthronement) for having helped enthrone King Gongyang and had his portrait painted and enshrined in the government hall. This original no longer survives. Copies made from this original are held at Imgoseowon; the Poeun Seonsaeng Yeongdang shrine in Mohyeon-dong, Yongin, Gyeonggi-do; the Yonggang Yeongdang shrine in Jangheung County, Jeollanam-do; the National Museum of Korea (a copy by Yi Han-cheol); and the Seoul National University Museum (a preliminary sketch), among other places. Although all of these portraits of Jeong Mong-ju are copies, they share the same iconographic form, since they were all ultimately copied from the same original Jwamyeong gongsin portrait. However, after the copy made directly from the Jwamyeong Merit Subject portrait in 1555 became badly worn and torn following the Japanese invasions of 1592–1598, the Confucian scholars of the academy had it copied anew in 1629, the seventh year of King Injo. This portrait, made in 1629, is the one currently designated as a treasure (designated in December 1991). The present portrait, held at the Gyeonggi Provincial Museum, is presumed to be the earlier version copied in 1555. It is said to have remained in the possession of the head family of the Yeongil Jeong clan until it was donated to the museum in 2006. The painting is made of three panels of silk sewn together, a feature typical of early portraits. Examination of the reverse during conservation work in 2007 showed that colour had been applied extensively to the back of the silk (baechae, a technique in which pigment on the reverse shows through to soften the tone of the front) not only beneath the official's cap, face and robe but also beneath the footstool. The portrait shows the sitter seated full-length in a chair, seen in nine-tenths left profile, wearing a black official's cap (osamo) and a round-collared robe (dallyeong), with his hands folded before him. The black cap has a low, rounded crown, and its narrow wings droop downward. The robe was probably originally blue, but is now so faded that it appears almost grey. The collar sits close to the neck and the sleeves are narrow, a form characteristic of the transition from late Goryeo to early Joseon. A gilt-studded belt (sapgeumdae) is worn at the waist. The face is rendered mainly in pale flesh tones, with parts of the eyes, nose and mouth now flaked away; the loss is especially regrettable around the left eye, of which barely half survives. The features and facial wrinkles are described only briefly, in brown outlines. In the right eye, the upper and lower eyelids are drawn in black lines, the inner corner is very lightly washed with pale ink, and the iris is also rendered in pale ink; no eyelashes are shown at all. The nose is rendered with some detail, and the mouth is painted in a dark red, its outline reinforced with pale ink and the lip colour applied very faintly. The outlines and folds of the robe are drawn in fine, sharp ink lines, and the folds falling between the thighs are simplified into crossing vertical and horizontal lines. The chair appears to be spread with a red cushion, and the plain purple cushion cord tied to the chair catches the eye. On the footstool, both feet, shod in black leather boots, are placed side by side facing the same direction; nothing is spread on the top or base of the footstool. The overall costume and headwear, the simplified rendering of the face, the cushion cord on the chair, the two black leather boots placed in the same direction, and the layered cheolli and dapho, inner robes glimpsed through the opening of the dallyeong, are all features shared with meritorious-subject portraits from the late Goryeo to early Joseon period, such as the Portrait of Yi Cheon-u and the Portrait of Yi Saek. This work is notable not only as a portrait of Jeong Mong-ju, one of Korea's most celebrated literati and a figure renowned for his loyalty, but also as a copy dating from the mid-Joseon period that, though not the original made in the late Goryeo to early Joseon period, faithfully reflects the stylistic features of that original. As a portrait of Jeong Mong-ju predating by some seventy years the treasure previously regarded as the oldest surviving portrait of him, it is considered to have ample value as cultural heritage.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Yongin, Gyeonggi

Designation

Treasure · 보물