• Date: November 15th, Tuesday, 2022, 12:00 – 13:00
• Location: Room 406, SNUAC (Bldg. 101)

Speaker: Okyang Chae-Duporge (Associate Prof., Université Bordeaux Montaigne)

The return (?) of the Oegyujanggak Uigwe that the French took at the time of the French expedition to Korea (1866) brought about a great interest in Korean cultural assets that were taken abroad. How and why were Korean cultural assets scattered around the world, by whom, and where are they? There are many cases, from purchases by private collectors, diplomatic gifts, to donations to public institutions, and one of the places we can observe these various aspects in a historical context is the Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet in Paris, which is the largest Asian art museum in Europe. The folk artifacts purchased by Charles Varat (1842-1893), the first Frenchman to travel to Korea after the France–Korea Treaty of 1886, on his land route from Seoul to Busan, became the basis of the Korean collection at Guimet. The role of Collin de Plancy (1853-1922), the first French diplomatic minister to Korea who supplemented the collection, is also important. He also contributed greatly to the 1900 Paris Exposition. The famous jikji that is now at the National Library of France was also exhibited there. Afterward, the most remarkable items in the Korean collection of the museum are those donated by Lee Ufan in the early 2000s: over 100 pieces of late Joseon Dynasty decorative paintings. This presentation will examine Korean cultural assets from those plundered to donated, especially the collection of the Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet in Paris.