On July 23, the Kansong Artwork Museum in Seoul hosted a ceremony to mark the return of two Qing Dynasty stone lion sculptures to China. In accordance with a report within the South Korean publication Yonhap Information Company, the ceremony was attended by Chun In-keon, director of the Kansong Artwork Museum, You Hong-june, director of the Nationwide Museum of Korea, Dai Bing, the Chinese language ambassador to South Korea, and Rao Quan, head of China’s Nationwide Cultural Heritage Administration. The lions’ return had been organized at a gathering between the 2 international locations in early January.
The statues have been bought by Jeon Hyeong-pil, a Korean artwork collector and philanthropist, from an public sale in Osaka, Japan, in 1933. Jeon (who additionally glided by the identify of Kansong, or Gansong in Korea) established the Bohwagak museum 5 years later, in 1938. In accordance with the museum’s web site, its goal was to protect Korean cultural artifacts, particularly in response to Japanese Imperialist insurance policies. Jeon died in 1962, at which level his son and different family members took over the gathering, ultimately altering its identify to the Kansong Artwork Museum in 1966.
The gathering consists of examples of calligraphy, portray, ceramics, metal- and stonework. The museum’s web site categorizes 11 objects as “nationwide treasures”: Fifteenth-century battle data, Twelfth- and Thirteenth-century celadon objects, two bronze Buddhas, and a white porcelain vase.
The lions themselves are sitting on their haunches on tall plinths and have menacing expressions. They’re every over 6 toes tall and weigh over a ton. They’ve been a fixture on the museum for nearly a century, and at the moment stand on both aspect of the museum’s entrance. China plans to revive the sculptures and show them at a nationwide museum inside a 12 months. Dai, the Chinese language diplomat to Korea, noticed this occasion a constructive signal of future collaboration. “I consider the 2 international locations can develop varied cooperation and exchanges relating to displaced cultural heritage and improve pleasant sentiments between their peoples,” he stated on the ceremony, in response to Yonhap.
On the homepage is a black-and-white photograph of two smiling stone tigers. These statues will substitute the lions as soon as they make their means again to China.
