• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.100-121
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• 2023

This paper examines the interior settings of a chamber and of a temporary place of enshrinement at Yeonghuijeon (永禧殿, Hall of Eternal Happiness), the representative official portrait hall in which portraits of early and late Joseon kings were enshrined. Also, it discusses the features of the Five Peak screens used therein. The physical environment of a chamber at Yeonghuijeon mainly consisted of a four-panel folding screen with a painting of Five Peaks and a large wooden platform, which was adorned with dragon and lion patterns and attached to lotus-leaf column balustrades. The Five Peak screen was installed on a large platform in the shape of ⊓, spreading across the second and third panels on the back and folding out on the first and fourth panels on the right and left sides. When a portrait was enshrined in a temporary place, a simpler and smaller platform with railings was used. A four-panel folding screen of the Five Peak painting was installed in the same way as in a chamber, but was unfolded around a smaller platform behind it. A royal portrait was displayed in each chamber, whereas a case in which a portrait was rolled up was put on the smaller platform in a temporary place. The Five Peak screens for a chamber and a temporary place were all large four-panel folding screens with two wide panels in the middle and two narrow panels on each side, and only strips of silk were mounted on the four edges of the screens without additional wide lower-side mountings. While screens for the chamber used patterned silk for mounting and white paper for backing on screen frames, screens for the temporary place used plain silk and recycled failed test papers for mounting and backing, respectively. By examining records in the literature on the Five Peak screens for Yeonghuijeon, this paper highlights two Five Peak screens, both of which lost their provenance from the hall. The structures of the two screens reflected the way they were to be installed at the hall. Furthermore, this paper assumes that a Five Peak screen, which had been unfolded on the throne in the main hall of Changdeokgung Palace after the 1960s, was produced in 1858 for the purpose of temporarily enshrining King Sunjo's portrait due to the fact that failed test papers of the 1840s were laid taut over the frame.