A SIX-PANELS SCREEN WITH LANDSCAPES OF THE 'DIAMOND MOUNTAIN'
Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), 18th-19th century

Each of the panel with a landscape painted in ink and soft colors on paper, with high rocky pinnacles, pine trees, pavilions and figures, each of the panels with a hanja inscription and signature of the artist followed by seal.

105 x 318 cm (the paintings 64 x 38 cm each)

Provenance: Italian private collection, formerly owned by an Italian diplomat who lived in Korea in the second half of the 20th century.

The 'Diamond Mountain' (Geumgang) is a rock complex located on the east coast of the Korean peninsula, currently in the territories pertaining to North Korea, a few kilometers from the border with South Korea. Since ancient times, this group of granite pinnacles played a particular role in the imagination of the Koreans, who were convinced that numerous deities inhabited its ravines. In the following centuries it became a place of choice also for Buddhism, and numerous temples were built in its vicinity, thus stimulating a felt and heterogeneous religious pilgrimage.
In painting, the best-known depictions of Geumgang were made by Jeong Seon (1676-1759), one of the major protagonists of Korean figurative art, who was gradually able to conceive views with a topographical approach that broke away from the idealized vision of Chinese inspiration.
The works of Jeong Seon with the 'Diamond Mountain' constituted an inexhaustible source of inspiration for all those numerous artists who in later times tried their hand at this subject.