Yu Sun-jeong Portrait and Box

Yu Sun-jeong (柳順汀, 1459–1512), a civil official of the mid-Joseon period, had Jinju as his clan seat and Cheongcheon as his pen name. This portrait is a copy made by his descendants in the first half of the eighteenth century, based on the original gongsindo — a portrait painted to honour a meritorious subject — produced when Yu was inducted as a First-Class Jeongguk (State-Pacifying) Meritorious Subject for his part in the Jungjong Restoration of 1506, the first year of King Jungjong's reign. At the top of the painting an inscription in seal script reads, "Portrait of Yu Sun-jeong, Jeongguk Meritorious Subject and Yeonguijeong [Chief State Councillor]" (靖國功臣領議政柳順汀遺像). To its right is a record of Yu's personal details, and in the upper left is a eulogistic poem composed by Kim Sang-heon. Below this it is noted that Kim's poem was rewritten in 1720, the forty-sixth year of King Sukjong, by Yu Su, Yu Sun-jeong's ninth-generation descendant. This confirms that the portrait is an eighteenth-century copy made on the basis of the original. In the painting, Yu Sun-jeong sits neatly in a chair with his hands clasped together inside his sleeves. His face, turned to the right, is tinged with a ruddy flush, its contours rendered in light, soft tones, and even the marks of smallpox scarring are shown on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He wears a wide-winged samo, an official hat, and a dark blue dallyeong, a round-collared official robe. The cloud pattern on the robe is set off in a shade darker than the ground colour, but is applied uniformly without regard to the folds of the fabric. On his chest is a rank badge of a pair of peacocks, and at his waist he wears a seodae, a rhinoceros-horn belt reserved for officials of the highest rank. The patterned rug on the floor is rendered with small repeated dots of different colours that convincingly suggest the texture of a carpet. Although a later copy, this portrait of Yu Sun-jeong is an important example for studying the format and characteristics of sixteenth-century portraiture. In particular, it retains something of the format of the 1476 portraits of the Jeokgae Meritorious Subjects, from the seventh year of King Seongjong, while also anticipating features of the 1625 portraits of the Jeongsa Meritorious Subjects, from the third year of King Injo.

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Where it is

Region

Yongin, Gyeonggi

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산