Water Gate Jang Gathering Painting

This is a gyehoedo, a painting commissioned to commemorate a gathering of colleagues, made around 1630 and depicting an assembly of sumunjang, the gate guards belonging to the Sumunjangcheong, the Gate Guard Office, a Joseon government office of junior fourth rank. It has the typical form of such gathering scrolls, made up of three parts: a title in seal script, the painting itself, and a jwamok, a list of the participants. The jwamok records each man's official rank, name, courtesy name, year of birth, year of passing the military examination, clan seat and place of residence, together with the rank and name of his father. At its head is written 'Sumunjangcheong', showing that the painting was commissioned by the gate guards themselves and that a total of nineteen of them gathered together. The nineteen gate guards were Gang Ok (b. 1588), Kim Chung-rip (birth year not recorded), An Su-ik (b. 1577), Bak Jun-min (b. 1586), Seong Jin-chang (b. 1603), Min Tae-hyeong (b. 1593), Kim Ik-gyeon (b. 1599), Yi Yeong (birth year not recorded), Yi Ik-seon (b. 1596), Gyeong Yu-jong (birth year not recorded), Yun Jung-yeong (b. 1588), Sin Yeong (b. 1597), Kim Yeo-hyo (b. 1601), Sin Wi-mang (b. 1598), Kim Yeong (b. 1601), Gwon Hang (b. 1575), Yun Hun (b. 1585), Kim Hyeong (b. 1587), and Yi Gu (b. 1592). The jwamok also gives their years of birth, and the Seungjeongwon ilgi confirms that An Su-ik held the post of gate guard in May 1627, Kim Chung-rip in May 1628, Kim Yeo-hyo from February to July 1629, Yun Hun and Kim Yeong in July 1629, Sin Wi-mang in June 1630, and Seong Jin-chang in May 1631. As their places of residence were spread across the country, including Seoul, Haeju and Uljin, it is presumed that both former and serving gate guards gathered together on this occasion. The date of the gathering is usually recorded in the painting or at the head of the jwamok, but it is not given here. Judging, however, from the periods during which the men named in the jwamok held office, the gathering is thought to have taken place around 1630, that is, between 1627 (the fifth year of King Injo) and 1631 (the ninth year of King Injo). The painting is set against the Hangang River. In the foreground is a hill set to the left and figures lined up beneath a canopy; the middle ground consists of the broad flowing river, a sandbar and a small peak; and the background is formed of mountains, showing that this belongs to the 'Jamdubong-gyehoedo' type, a category of gathering painting set against a real landscape that has existed since the sixteenth century. Beneath the canopy sit seventeen figures in a row, eight to each side of a central figure, while one further figure on horseback is shown arriving late. The colours used are green, red and blue: pale green wash is used for the landscape, and vivid red for the roof of the building, the attendant's costume, the table bearing a wine jar, and the sun in the distance, though parts of the red show traces of later re-colouring. Pale blue wash appears at the hem of the canopy. The mounting uses cream silk with a continuous diamond pattern to border the edges of the painting, and indigo silk with a floral pattern for the top and bottom borders. Two iron rings survive on the upper roller, which adds greatly to its documentary value. Although this is not the original mounting from the time of production but a later remounting, it appears to make full use of the original materials, and, together with the form of the mounting and the surviving iron rings, it is valuable evidence for the mounting styles of the Joseon period. The Water Gate Jang Gathering Painting held by the Army Museum is the only surviving gathering painting of the Gate Guard Office produced in the first half of the seventeenth century, and is valuable as an example of a gathering painting of that period set against a real view of the Hangang riverside.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Nowon-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산