ANONYMOUS, (19TH/EARLY 20TH CENTURY)
Gu Eun Mong (A Nine Clouds Dream)
Late Joseon dynasty (1392-1897), 19th/20th century
An eight-panel screen, painted in ink and colors on paper, mounted on brocade, depicting episodes from the novel Gu Eun Mong (A Nine Clouds Dream)
66 1/2 x 139in (168.9 x 353cm) overall
Footnotes:
Provenance
Formerly in a Florida private family collection, acquired in Korea, 1950s-1960s.

Exhibited and Published
'Power and Pride: Later Korean Painting', Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, Florida (December 7, 1996-February 2, 1997); Brevard Museum of Art and Science, Cocoa, Florida (April 26-June 30, 1997), p. 11.

Gu Eun Mung is a Korean novel generally believed to be by Kim Man-jung (1637-1692). Set in Tang-dynasty China, the story centers around Shao Yu, a young monk who succumbs to the temptations of eight fairy maidens. Ironically, his punishment for this transgression is reincarnation as a handsome and successful young scholar, who quickly achieves high office and acquires two wives and six concubines, all of them reincarnations of the fairies. Shao gradually moves toward an understanding of the transient nature of his material existence and at last grasps the fundamental teaching of the Buddha. Gu Eun Mung was the first substantial work of Korean fiction to be translated into English (in 1922) and a new translation came out in 2018: Kim Manjung, translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl, The Nine Cloud Dream, New York: Penguin Random House, 2018. Screens depicting the novel are very rare.