Bongsudang jinchando (Royal Banquet at Bongsudang Hall)
Overview
This painting on a panel was originally part of an eight-panel folding screen depicting a royal procession to Hwaseong Fortress. Such folding screens of the royal procession to Hwaseong Fortress portray events related to the sixtieth birthday festivities held over eight days by King Jeongjo (r. 1776–1800) in 1795 in Hwaseong for his mother Queen Heongyeong (1735–1815). This painting entitled Royal Banquet at Bongsudang Hall illustrates a royal banquet celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Heongyeong’s birth, which was the most important event at the festivities. The royal banquet at Bongsudang Hall was held on the thirteenth day of the second lunar month of 1795, three days after King Jeongjo and his entourage arrived at Hwaseong Fortress. Approximately eighty relatives and acquaintances of Queen Heongyeong were invited to the banquet. The upper half of this painting shows a scene of dance performances within walls temporarily installed in the courtyard of the ornately adorned Bongsudang Hall. Several dancers are performing a Drum Dance with drums placed in the middle of the groups while others perform a Boat Dance. There are several duplicates of these folding screens depicting the royal procession to Hwaseong Fortress, including versions in the collections of the National Museum of Korea and the National Palace Museum of Korea. Once a part of such a folding screen, this panel in the Dongguk University Museum was donated by a Korean resident of Japan in the 1970s. It was natural for the Joseon royal court to create duplicates when making documentary paintings. It appears that great numbers of duplicates of folding screens depicting the royal parade to Hwaseong Fortress may have been created. The single panel that remains at the Dongguk University Museum is considered to display an elevated level of artistic achievement compared to the surviving folding screens on the topic. This high-quality work is an illustrative example of the eighteenth-century royal paintings created by the renowned court painters of the time.


