A set of ten blue and white epitaph plaques for the official Yoo Hanki


Joseon dynasty, dated by inscription to 1824The lengthy obituary covering ten rectangular pieces of porcelain of vertical section, all inscribed in ten vertical rows of neat Hanjea script to describe the family life, personality, genealogy, descendants, and political career of the deceased, identified along the thin right edges of the porcelain as the provincial official Yoo Hanki (1739-1824), the essay authored by his "unworthy surviving nephew" Sungjoo soon after his decease; the complete set now mounted in a long horizontal frame each plaque 7 1/8 x 6 1/8in (18.1 x 15.5cm) 10 3/4 x 76 1/4in (27.3 x 193.7cm) total size of frame
|Two sets of epitaphs of similar design are published in Hongnam Kim ed., Korean Arts of the Eighteenth Century: Splendor and Simplicity, New York, Asia Society, 1993, cat no.110-11, pp.186-187 and 231. Similar sets are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (acc.no.1998.486.1–.34) and the British Museum (acc. no.1997.0721.1-14), the latter dated to 1849. The fact that these works were buried in the tombs of officials and written in Chinese characters, which were not as widely understood as Korea's Hangul script, seems to have allowed the author a fascinating degree of candor. The third plaque gives details of Yoo's run-in with Queen Jeongsun (1745-1805) and the essay includes descriptions of his personality, the seventh plaque discussing his fondness for indulging in drink when things got rough but added he showed no particular proclivity for the vice of female companionship.