Inscribed "Eojeonjuncheonje" Album

This album of paintings commemorates the successful completion of the dredging of Cheonggyecheon Stream, carried out in 1760, the thirty-sixth year of King Yeongjo. It is a colour album painted on silk, arranged in the following order: first, over one leaf of two pages, a woodblock-type-printed roster of the officials of the Juncheonso (Stream-Dredging Office); then, across two leaves and four pages, two paintings - one of the king's personal visit to Yeonghwadang Pavilion to bestow a royal meal, and one of the king personally viewing the dredging work at the water gate; then the king's own calligraphy of his own composition, across two leaves and four pages; a poem composed by the king, over one leaf of two pages; and finally, across eight leaves and sixteen pages, the so-called "rhyme-matching poems" composed by sixteen attending ministers, officials, and participants in the dredging project, written in reply to the king's poem and matching its rhyme words 力 (power) and 國 (nation). After the dredging project was completed, rather than following the customary practice of the responsible directorate producing a commemorative folding screen, the king himself decided the order of the images and the content of the scenes to be painted, then had the album presented for royal viewing, and specially ordered that a copy be given to each of the senior officials of the Juncheonso. Among surviving paintings recording court events, this is presumed to be the earliest known example of an album produced by direct royal command, and it shows the king's own close involvement in determining its content. It also agrees with numerous records in the Sillok, the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, giving it great value as a historical source as well as a record painting. It is regrettably incomplete: as a painting album, two of the original four paintings are missing, and as a poetry collection, eleven of twenty-seven poets' poems are missing and the order of some has been altered. Even so, given the overall quality of the work, it possesses value fully sufficient to warrant designation as a piece of national heritage.

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Where it is

Region

Nam-gu, Busan

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산