An exceptional chaekgeori: scholarly culture and Joseon elegance on sale July 1

On July 1, 2025 , at the " Oriental & Asian Works of Art " sale organized by Il Ponte Casa d'Aste in Milan, one lot really stood out: a six-panel chaekgeori screen , attributed to the court painter Yi Taek-gyun (active after 1883), Joseon Dynasty. Estimated at between €15,000 and €25,000 , this rare masterpiece embodies the late refinement of Korean painting.

What is chaekgeori?

Chaekgeori , literally "books and things," is a genre of Korean pictorial still life that emerged in the late 18th century. It was inspired by Chinese and European cabinets of curiosities introduced via Jesuit missionaries, but evolved into a Korean style combining trompe-l'oeil , perspective , and symbolism of objects related to literati culture .

These screens, prized by Confucian elites, aim to celebrate knowledge, morality, and inner harmony.

Made up of six panels (137 × 218 cm), this screen made of ink and mineral pigments presents an imagined scholar's interior, populated with books, celadon vases, jade brushes, scholar's stones, flowers, ritual objects... Each detail is painted with a spatial and tonal precision revealing the hand of an elite artist.

A rare feature distinguishes this work: a hidden red seal ( eumjang ) embedded in the upper left portion. These seals, discreet and difficult to spot, are the subtle signature of Korean artists. Their rare presence (about a dozen recorded) allows the work to be attributed with certainty to Yi Taek-gyun.

Yi Taek-gyun, court painter and visual witness of knowledge

According to scholars, Yi Taek-gyun appears to have been a late court artist, active after 1883, commissioning paintings for high-ranking officials or the royal family. A comparable ten-panel screen by him sold at Christie's New York in December 2024 for $642,600 , more than 25 times its original estimate. This performance illustrates the growing interest in these works and their rarity.

Based on comparisons with three attributed works, including the one from the Cleveland Museum of Art examined by Dr. Sooa McCormick and Prof. Byungmo Chung, this lot is among the most significant known to date.

This lot will be presented as part of a thematic sale that combines ancient cultures and treasures of Asian art, the result of a partnership between Il Ponte and Millon Auction Group .

With this Franco-Italian expertise, the approach benefits from a renewed perspective on aesthetics, provenance and historical context.

The provenance reflects the artistic recognition of the work: acquired around 1987 from the La Vieille Fontaine gallery in Lausanne, with documents signed by Madeleine Oesch-Gonin, this painting had been noticed since a similar record sale organized in Paris.

This screen is fully in line with the gradual rediscovery of chaekgeori, a genre long neglected by Western historiography yet central to the visual culture of the Joseon dynasty. Far from being simple exotic still lifes, these compositions are today recognized for their symbolic richness, their role in the Confucian culture of learning, and their anchoring in an aesthetic of subtlety specific to 18th- and 19th-century Korea.

The work in question is distinguished by the extremely rare presence of a discreet seal (eumjang) , integrated into the composition. These seals, often hidden from the naked eye, allow a reliable attribution to the artist Yi Taek-gyun , which considerably increases its scientific and commercial value.

Its exceptional pictorial quality , based on the mastery of trompe-l'oeil, inverted perspective and the subtle use of mineral pigments, as well as its anchoring in the learned world of scholars, make it a work that is both intellectual and decorative , embodying the humanist ideal specific to the Korean Confucian scholar.

The record sale of a comparable screen by Yi Taek-gyun at Christie's New York in December 2024 (USD 642,600) testifies to the growing recognition and appreciation of this type of painting , which now joins the restricted circle of Asian objects with strong potential on the international art market.

Selected academic bibliography

• McCormick, Sooa . Chaekgeori: The Power and Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens , Cleveland Museum of Art, 2017.

• Chung, Byungmo . “The Chaekgeori Genre and the Values of Knowledge in Joseon Korea,” Bulletin of the French School of the Far East , vol. 103, 2017, pp. 241–258.

• Pai, Hyung Il . Heritage Management in Korea and Japan: The Politics of Antiquity and Identity , University of Washington Press, 2013.

• Kim, Youn-mi (ed.). The Visual Culture of the Joseon Dynasty , Ashgate Publishing, 2014.

• National Museum of Korea . Korean Paintings – Treasures of the Joseon Dynasty , exhibition catalogue, Seoul, 2015.