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Samsung family’s Korean art collection is being shown for the first time in overseas tour

Joseon-era treasures and modern paintings feature in Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared, which has made its first stop in the US

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Visitors admire a Joseon-era drum stand that’s part of the “Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared” exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington. The show features more than 200 works from the late Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee’s vast collection. Photo: courtesy of Samsung Electronics
Bloomberg

For decades, one of the world’s most historically significant collections of Korean art has been kept largely out of public view, quietly assembled by South Korea’s richest family and Samsung founders, the Lees.

Now, the works are on their first-ever overseas tour, riding a global wave of interest in Korean culture that extends well beyond pop music and film into the country’s deepest artistic traditions.

“Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared” features more than 200 works from the late Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee’s vast art collection. It will run at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, in the United States, until February 1.
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The exhibition is jointly organised by Seoul’s National Museum of Korea and National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, and will travel to Chicago in March and London’s British Museum in September.

The entrance of “Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington. Photo: courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
The entrance of “Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington. Photo: courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
The art pieces span roughly 1,500 years of Korean history, including celadon from the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392) to treasures from the Joseon era (1392-1910) and notable paintings by modern artist Kim Whan-ki. Lee’s private collection, which was donated to the state in 2021 as part of the Samsung family’s inheritance tax settlement, encompassed more than 23,000 pieces.
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Experts estimated the collection had an appraised value of between 2 trillion won (US$1.4 billion) and 3 trillion won when it was donated, while the market value could be around 10 trillion won.

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