Gyemi Bronze Mirror Sojin Album

This is a dong-gyeong-gyecheop (同庚契帖), an album made by seven men all born in the same year, the gyemi year (癸未, 1703, the 29th year of King Sukjong). Opening the album, the right-hand page of each spread is left blank, while the left-hand page carries, in turn, half-length portraits of seven men: Vice Minister Yi Ik-jin (李翼鎭, 1703–?), Minister Jo Yeong-jin (趙榮鎭, 1703–1775), Vice Minister Yi Gyu-chae (李奎采, 1703–?), Chief State Councillor Han Ik-mo (韓翼謨, 1703–?), Magistrate Song Jin-heum (宋晉欽, 1703–?), Chief State Councillor Sin Man (申晩, 1703–1765), and Yu Eon-sul (兪彦述, 1703–1773). This is followed, over four pages, by a preface written by Yu Eon-sul in the tenth lunar month of 1771 (the 47th year of King Yeongjo), when the men were sixty-nine. At the upper right of each portrait is written the sitter's office and name, in the form "Vice Minister Yi, Lord, taboo name Ik-jin" (參判李公諱翼鎭); the final portrait, however, carries no such inscription. Since Yu Eon-sul, who wrote the preface, was also born in 1703, this final, unlabelled portrait is presumed to be his own. According to Yu Eon-sul's preface, fifteen men born in the same year first made a dong-gyeong-cheop in the eulchuk year (1745), when they turned forty-three. Afterwards, kept busy with official duties and worldly affairs, more than ten years passed, during which seven of the fifteen died, leaving eight survivors. These men decided to have small portraits made and compiled into an album, but before it was completed three more had died, so that by the time the preface was written in 1771 only five remained alive. Yi Ik-jin's name can still be found in the Seungjeongwon ilgi (Diary of the Royal Secretariat) as late as 1773. Han Ik-mo rose to Chief State Councillor in 1772 and, together with Jo Yeong-jin, who held the post of Jijungchubusa (a senior post in the Office of Ministers without Portfolio), and Yu Eon-sul, entered the Giroso — an honorific body for senior officials aged seventy or older — that same year, becoming Girodangsang, a high-ranking Giroso official. This confirms that Yi Ik-jin, Han Ik-mo, Jo Yeong-jin, and Yu Eon-sul were all still alive in 1771. Sin Man died on 30 March 1765, so the album is presumed to have been begun before that date. The plain green silk cover bears the title "Gyemi Donggyeong Sojin-cheop" (癸未同庚小眞帖, "Album of Small Portraits of the Gyemi Same-Age Society"), written on white silk. The border of each painting is edged with dark-blue silk, a mounting style typical of eighteenth-century painting albums. The mounting, including the cover, shows no trace of remounting and retains its original state, and the paintings themselves are also very well preserved, with no damage to the ground or change to the colours. The portraits show the sitters, dressed in green (Yi Ik-jin, Song Jin-heum) or pink (the others) official robes, in a left three-quarter view, except for the portrait of Yi Gyu-chae, which is shown frontally — perhaps because he had specifically requested a frontal likeness. The technique of outlining the face, features, and wrinkles in brown line, then lightly shading along those lines, is consistent with eighteenth-century portrait style. The individual physical characteristics of each sitter — skin tone, age spots or wrinkles, facial hair — are all well rendered. Because the album was completed over a long period, and there are some differences in the brushwork of the facial outlines, the intensity of shading, the drapery lines, the rendering of the official cap, and the colouring, it is thought that several painters took part in the work. Compared with the number of recorded examples, few dong-gyeong-gyehoedo (paintings made for gatherings of men of the same age) actually survive, and the known seventeenth-century examples of the genre are mostly hanging scrolls rather than albums, and all depict the scene of the gathering itself, which makes for an instructive comparison. This Gyemi Donggyeong Sojin-cheop is an exceptional and important example in that it takes the form of an album containing individual half-length portraits of each society member. It is therefore a very rare example of an eighteenth-century dong-gyeong-gyecheop, and, in depicting each individual separately, it is a valuable illustration of the varied approaches to making such albums in the late eighteenth century. It is also of great value in having preserved its original form, without remounting or disturbance to its contents.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Seongbuk-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산