Deer amid pine trees
소나무 아래 사슴 조선
松下雙鹿圖 朝鮮
Deer, pine trees and eternal mashrooms
Depicting idyllic landscapes, the two scrolls displayed here celebrate auspicious imagery, especially deer and pine trees. Originally they were probably part of a set featuring the ten symbols of longevity. The blue and green landscape setting also carries a favorable meaning: it evokes an archaic style associated with a golden age in China to which later artistic traditions throughout East Asia often alluded.
The pictorial theme of the ten symbols of longevity was especially fashionable in Korea during the Joseon dynasty, and most extant works date to the nineteenth century. Painted or embroidered folding screens on the subject were initially produced for the royal court to display at palace events. The appealing motifs also filtered into folk paintings.
Unidentified Korean artist
The Metropolitan Museum of Art <br /><br />http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/78286
19th century
Purchase, Friends of Asian Art Gifts, 2013
© 2000–2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. All rights reserved.
Two hanging scrolls; ink and color on silk
Painting
Accession Number:2013.29a, b
Shipjang-001
Tiger and Magpie
Tiger, magpie, and pine tree
A large tiger with striped fur and a long tail curving around the lower half of the picture is seated with its body facing to the right and its head turned to the left. The tiger appears to be looking at two magpies perched in the branches of a pine tree in the top left-hand side of the picture.
Unidentified Korean artist
Victoria and Albert Museum <br /><br />http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O22242
1850-1910
Purchased with the help of Museum colleagues in memory of Lisa Bailey (1964-1996), Curator of Korean Art 1994-1996
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2017. All Rights Reserved
Black ink and colors on paper
Painting
Museum number: FE.68-1997
Hojak-003
Golden Cock and Hen
Cock and Hen with landscape
Paintings of auspicious symbols were popular in the late Joseon period among all classes of society. This scroll represents a combination of two established themes in Korean painting: birds and flowers and the ten symbols of longevity—sun, mountain, water, rock, cloud, pine tree, tortoise, crane, deer, and mushroom of immortality. This work depicts a golden cock perched on a paulownia tree under the sun and clouds, and a golden hen looking up from her place on a rock with sprouting red mushrooms of immortality. Splashing waves create drama. This pair of fowls seems to allude to the golden pheasant (which despite the name has a reddish body with a yellow crest), which is associated with good fortune.
Auspicious creatures such as tigers, dragons, cranes, and deer appeared on a range of media in the Joseon period, attesting to the importance and prevalence of these symbols in Korean culture.
Unidentified Korean artist
Metropolitan Museum of Arts <br /><br />http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/40073
19th century
Rogers Fund, 1919
Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
Painting
Accession Number:19.103.2
Hwajo-001