The Smithsonian Institution’s latest exhibition explores objects donated to the National Museum of Korea and National Museum of Contemporary Art from the collection of the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, which his family gifted to the Korean nation in 2021. Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared features more than 200 works of art, including a dozen National Treasures, opened in November. In the past, Confucian ideals dictated every facet of Korean life, from the country’s social system, and distinctions of class and gender, to its artistic production. This exhibition seeks to show how these ideals are inherent in Korea and its people and explores how they continue to influence Korean manners, norms, and social attitudes today.
It also marks the largest display of Korean art presented at the National Museum of Asian Art (occupying two levels of the museum), and the most comprehensive showcase of the Lee family collection outside of Korea. It is also one of the first projects of Sunwoo Hwang, the museum’s newly appointed Korean Foundation Assistant Curator of Korean Art and Culture. While most of the works are traditional, the exhibition also features modern Korean art, both integrated throughout the installation and in a dedicated gallery showcasing 20th-century masterworks. Through this approach, the show aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and create a meaningful connection between traditional and modern art and culture.
The featured works provide insight into patronage systems, cultural preferences, and key transnational East Asian institutions, encouraging stylistic comparisons with related works produced in China and Japan. To do this, the show is divided into 10 sections to create a general overview of Korean art from a 10th/11th-century Buddhist bell from the Goryeo dynasty to works from the 1970s and 1980s by such artists as Kim Whanki (1913-1974), Lee Ugno (1904-1989), and Park Saengkwang (1904-1985).
The opening gallery explores the concept of chaekgeori, or ‘cabinets of curiosities’ and the practice of collecting by depicting everyday objects in both traditional and modern contexts. To illustrate the scholar’s life, a six-fold panel screen shows typical scholarly objects found in a scholar’s studio. Chaekgeori can also be translated as ‘books and things, and screens often show scholarly objects alongside exotic luxuries, symbolic flowers, and gourmet delicacies dispersed in artful arrangements on bookshelves – a good example can be seen in the exhibition.
These types of screens were praised by King Jeongjo (r 1776-1800) and were enthusiastically collected by the educated elite throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. By the late 1800s, the screens not only embellished the studies of scholars and aristocrats but were also found in the homes of middle-class merchants. Chaekgeori is also the earliest style of Korean painting to employ the European pictorial techniques of trompe l’oeil and chiaroscuro to create visual illusions of three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface. As mentioned, a primary motif of chaekgeori is books, objects traditionally associated with knowledge and social distinction by Korean intellectuals. Preferred by the court and elite classes, chaekgado, translated as ‘picture of bookshelves’, is a popular subgenre of chaekgeorideveloped in the second half of the 18th century that represents Korean collectors’ desire to amass books on diverse topics to express their aesthetic discernment.
A second section looks at the structured way of life in Korea for the elite. This is particularly evident during the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) with the establishment of the civil service, academies, and the adoption of Neo-Confucianism as the state religion. These institutions served as vital centres for education and the promotion of strict social conduct, upheld the veneration of Confucian ideals, and emphasised a refinement of style and taste. To illustrate these ideals, on show are commemorative portraits of elites and scholars who exemplified the core values of Neo-Confucianism, who served not only as government officials but also as scholars, educators, and moral exemplars.
Closely associated with this moral and social code is the scholar’s study (sarangbang), which is explored in the third part of the show. During the Joseon dynasty, Confucian beliefs dominated society and not only directed social order, but also influenced the style, size, and layout of homes. In accordance with the Confucian concept of separate roles for men and women, it was accepted that male family members were elected to maintain ties with the outside world.
The master of the house occupied the most important room – the study. This space played a powerful role in the household, it was used for dining, sleeping, reading, drinking tea, receiving guests, as well as studying, and displaying scholar’s objects associated with calligraphy and painting. Confucian standards also designated different styles of furniture for men and women (and sometimes dictated the height of the furniture) with pieces made for the study being more austere and restrained. Here, there would be a range of furniture from a desk (seon), various specialist boxes for writing and calligraphy along with other scholarly necessities – inkstones, brush pots, document and book chests, and display stands for favourite or important objects, such as porcelains.
Following the focus on the refined artworks produced for the yangban, the ruling, landowning, aristocratic class, the fourth gallery looks at the culture surrounding the highest echelons of society – the royal family and court. Here, objects reflect the grandeur and sophistication of the court by highlighting the meticulous production of such items as ceramics that symbolised royal authority and the elegance and refinement of court life. On show is a diverse collection of objects, including documentary paintings that capture significant events and ritual ceremonies, as well as items exclusively produced for the royal family and associates, such as furniture, ceramics, and screens – all serving as a backdrop to court life.
The fifth section looks at how Buddhism influenced the taste of the Joseon court. Buddhism had expanded throughout Korea in the 4th century and had flourished for almost a thousand years by the time the Joseon dynasty was established. Although Buddhism lost the official support of the court when Neo-Confucianism became the state religion, traces and memories of it remained in the country.
This persistence of Buddhist ideologies can be seen in works of art and demonstrates how the religion managed to retain an influence through various sources and patrons. By highlighting Buddhist sutrasand paintings commissioned by the royal family, this gallery explores how Buddhism was venerated within the Joseon royal court, even in a society shaped by Confucian ideology. This gallery also features early texts in hangeul, the Korean script created during King Sejong’s reign (r 1418-50), illustrating the link between Buddhist teachings and the promotion of literacy in religious practices.
The evolution of ceramics, from the Goryeo through the Joseon dynasties, is explored in the sixth gallery, where the objects celebrate the significance of technical and aesthetic achievements in Korean ceramics, often under royal patronage, which had established an official kiln system, Bunwon, dictating aesthetic preferences rooted in Neo-Confucian ideals. It also controlled the supply of materials. The gallery traces the development from the elegant celadons of the Goryeo period through the unique appeal of buncheong ware, to the refined white porcelain of the Joseon dynasty. Joseon white porcelain perfectly fits the simplicity of Neo-Confucian values, and over time, it diversified with miminalist decorating using cobalt blue, iron brown, and copper red into the design.
Buncheong is instantly recognisable by its sophisticated, playful, and engaging designs, which became a uniquely Korean art form in the late 14th to 16th centuries. These ceramics are linked to the Joseon dynasty, an era characterised by a shift in state beliefs and a desire for new artistic expressions. It represents a transition from the refinement of Goryeo celadons to the simplicity of later Joseon-period pure white porcelains.
A large gallery is reserved to explore the topic of Buddhist art. The collection of artworks and ritual objects crafted for Buddhist temples and private altars explores the resilience of Buddhism in the country. Spanning more than 1,000 years, it features artefacts from the Three Kingdoms period (57 BC-AD 680, to the Joseon dynasty, illustrating the impact of Buddhism on Korean art and culture. The Unified Silla period (698-935) is considered a golden age of Buddhist art on the peninsula, with royal patronage leading to the building of large temples that integrated Tang-dynasty influences with a distinctively Korean aesthetic.
Gallery eight invites the viewer to move outdoors and explore premodern depictions of nature, featuring landscapes, gardens, and bird and animal motifs, which were prominent subjects in Joseon paintings. The exhibition also explores the ‘true-view’ (jingyeongsansu) landscape genre, which emerged during the Joseon dynasty when artists transitioned from idealised, imagined scenes to the portrayal of real, identifiable locations. With the emergence of a national art ideal during the Joseon dynasty, painters drew inspiration from their own traditions and the spectacularly beautiful landscapes of the country.
In addition to representations of idealised landscapes, true-view landscape paintings became fashionable among the scholar class. Artists also painted insightful scenes of the daily life of the nobility (pungsokhwa) in which individuals are shown at home or familiar surroundings. Another important genre, birds and flowers, was inherited from the Song (960-1279) and produced paintings of great delicacy with rigorous observation of the subject matter, reproduced in a realistic manner. The last genre studied in the exhibition is Joseon portraiture, which skilfully combines the naturalism typical of Western art, introduced to Korea through China, with the psychological realism characteristic of the literati aesthetic.
The final two sections highlight the advent of new art forms and media in modern and post-war Korea, illustrating the explosion of artistic innovation and adaptation. The Joseon dynasty has left a substantial legacy to contemporary Korea, along with the art movements of the 20th century –these echoes are used by contemporary artists as inspiration to find the spirit of ‘Koreaness’ that remains strong in the 21st-century world of today.
Until 1 February 2026, National Museum of Asian Art, Washington DC asia.si.edu – a catalogue is available
