Curious Cabinets

Let’s take a closer look at the bookcase Yi Ŭngnok painted – not the objects on it, but the shelves themselves. They are quite far removed from your Billy bookcase from IKEA, and tell an interesting tale about what inspired the ch’aekkado genre.

The shape of the bookcase in this painting resembles a duobaoge 多寶閣, a “cabinet of many treasures” (fig. 1). Duobaoge were the Chinese spin on Western curio cabinets (fig. 2) that originated in the 15th century. ‘Curio cabinet’ refers to the space or the display case(s) Westerners used to display all kinds of curious (often foreign) objects they had collected. These “curiosities” were put on display to show off one’s wealth, one’s taste, one’s status, and one’s knowledge of the world. Objects ranged from furniture to jewelry, from natural specimens to ceramics, from precious stones to rare books, etc. Sunglim Kim, “Still Life in Motion: The Origins and Development of Chaekgeori Painting,” Ars Orientalis 51 (2021): 66-72.

The Chinese too had a long history of collecting objects dating back to the Han dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE), but they did not openly put their collections on display. They stored them away and occasionally brought them out to view them in close company. Even after the Europeans first came to China, bringing along their art and their ideas on art, the Chinese did not start openly displaying their collections until the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). During the Qing, the duobaoge became a popular way of displaying one’s possessions, with the same motivations as in Western settings. It was on their embassies to Beijing that Chosŏn emissaries first got to see these European and Chinese display cabinets, as well as Western (influenced) art, which they brought with them to Chosŏn. Kim 2021, 72-9.

Although the Chinese duobaoge furniture (which differs much from Korean furniture, see fig. 3) became relatively popular in Korea, the curio cabinet-trend never really caught on. The reason for this was Neo-Confucian moral teachings. Collecting objects was already considered pushing the boundaries of modesty, but to then publicly display them? Absolutely not. Instead, Chosŏn elites resorted to ch’aekkado to let their possessions speaks for them. Completely substituting the display case with a painting of it is a uniquely Korean twist on the concept of curio cabinets. Kim 2021, 85-6. We do not see a similar trend elsewhere, not even in China. At best, duobaoge were depicted in the background of a painting (fig. 4). Sunglim Kim, “Chaekgeori: Multi-Dimensional Messages in Late Joseon Korea,” Archives of Asian Art 64, no. 1 (2014): 6. But how will you know what exact story a ch’aekkado is telling you? Let’s look into tokhwa 讀畫, the art of reading paintings.