KOREAN NET

This eight-panel folding screen is dubbed "Welcoming Banquet of the Governor of Pyeongan." (Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation)

By Koh Hyunjeong

Domestic technology has been used to restore two of the nation's artifacts kept in the U.S.

The Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation on March 10 announced its completed restoration of "Welcoming Banquet of the Governor of Pyeongan," an artwork on an eight-panel folding screen stored at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, jointly with the Samsung Foundation of Culture.

In November 2023, the foundation repatriated the damaged screen and a hwarot, an exquisite bridal gown from the Joseon Dynasty. The preservation process for the screen was done at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul and that for the hwarot at Dankook University's Seokjuseon Memorial Museum in Yongin, Gyeonggi-do Province.

Measuring 507.2 cm wide and 170.6 cm high, the screen depicts a boat ride and banquet in 1826 to welcome the newly appointed governor. Leeum restored the artwork by filling in an estimated 10,000 traces of insect bites and restored the separated panels to their proper order.

Seokjuseon found parts of hidden embroidery in the hwarot during the restoration process and fully restored the gown into a royal wedding dress.

The two artifacts will be displayed at Leeum from March 11 to April 6 and in May at the reopening of the Korean collection at the Massachusetts museum.

The foundation said, "We will keep doing all we can to ensure that our cultural heritage overseas is more fully preserved and widely promoted where they are."

hjkoh@korea.kr