Siseo Portrait

This is a portrait of Kim Seon (1568–1642), a scholar of the mid-Joseon period. Kim Seon's pen name was Siseogeosa; he passed the lower civil service examination (samasi) in 1605, the 38th year of King Seonjo, but lamented the disorder of King Gwanghaegun's rule and, rather than entering government service, built a thatched cottage and lived in seclusion. The portrait is a full-length figure seated in a chair, facing to the right, and is thought to be a later copy faithfully reproducing the original. The right hand rests on the knee and the left holds a fan, while the head wears a bamboo headpiece (dugeon). The face is rendered in fine detail, even showing the pockmarks left by smallpox, and the robe is a hakchangui, the garment that conveys the dignity of a Confucian scholar. The face conveys the robust spirit of a rural scholar together with the unassuming bearing of a village elder, while the headpiece, the hakchangui outer robe and the shoes reveal not only the painting style of seventeenth-century portraiture but also the dress of the period. The upper right of the painting reproduces a piece of writing by Kim Seon himself, which reveals that the original painting was made in 1626, the fourth year of King Injo, when the painter Yi Eung-ha visited at the request of Kim Seon's son, Kim Si-gil.

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Where it is

Region

Yeongam, Jeonnam & Gwangju

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료