Yi Won-ik Portrait

This is a portrait of Yi Won-ik (1547–1634), a civil official of the mid-Joseon period. It hung in a saengsadang, a shrine built to honour a living person, erected by the clerks and people of Pyeongyang to commemorate the achievements of Yi Won-ik during his term as governor of Pyeongan-do. However, the overall form of the portrait does not match that of portraits from the period in which Yi Won-ik lived. The rank badge on the chest is excessively large, both hands are shown, and the shape of the official robes is unusual. In his collected writings, Yi Won-ik stated that the clerks of Pyeongyang had secretly had a court painter portray him. That is, the painter followed Yi Won-ik about and gathered sketches made in secret, later assembling them into this completed portrait. Nevertheless, the detailed depiction in the portrait is meticulous and of high quality. The painter of this portrait is presumed to have been a monk-painter: the clerks of Pyeongyang are thought to have asked a monk-painter active at a nearby temple to produce it. Monk-painters worked as they usually did when painting portraits of eminent monks for Buddhist use, which is why, as in Buddhist portraits, the hands are shown and the pose is relatively unconstrained. The unusual official robes in the Yi Won-ik portrait are presumed to result from the monk-painter drawing on the costume of Chinese portraits he had seen, or on Chinese portraits themselves, as reference.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산