Books and Scholars’ Accoutrements (late 1800s): Art, History and Details

Books and Scholars’ Accoutrements (late 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Yi Taek-gyun (Korean, 1808–after 1883).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

First produced around the second half of the eighteenth century, chaekgado (literally, “pictures of bookshelves”) flourished throughout the 1800s as a royal emblem. And soon this pictorial genre became a popular furnishing item for aristocrats' elegant studies. The third panel from the right bears a hidden seal that reveals the artist: Yi Taek-gyun, a prominent court artist active in the late 1800s.

Object facts

• Title: Books and Scholars’ Accoutrements
• Date: late 1800s
• Creator attribution: Yi Taek-gyun (Korean, 1808–after 1883)
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: ten-panel folding screen; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Overall: 197.5 x 395 cm (77 3/4 x 155 1/2 in.); Painting only: 139.3 x 330.8 cm (54 13/16 x 130 1/4 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Folding screen
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 2011.37

A detail from the museum

A convincing hypothesis that connects the Korean chaekgado tradition with the Renaissance tradition of illusionistic studiolo through the technique of trompe-l'œil and Chinese Qing period treasured cabinet paintings was first made in Park Shim-eun's thesis (2002).

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Park, Shim-eun. " The Origin of Chaekkado in Choson Period." Master's Thesis, Academy of Korean Studies, 2002.
• Black, Kay E., and Edward W. Wagner. "Ch'aekkŏri Paintings: A Korean Jigsaw Puzzle." Archives of Asian Art 46 (1993): 63–75.
• Sin, Mi-ran. “Objects in Chaekgeori Paintings [책거리 그림과 器物硏究].” Misul sahak yeongu no. 268 (2010): 169–194.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.