The Met and OKCHF Announce Joint Conservation Project for 19th-century Korean Painting

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation (OKCHF), an affiliate of the Korea Heritage Service, announced that Chilbosan (Seven Jeweled Mountain), a 19th-century Joseon landscape painting in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, will undergo conservation treatment and remounting in Korea. A project that reaffirms the value of cultural relics and promotes conservation initiatives internationally, it was selected for the OKCHF’s Conservation and Utilization Support Program and will be carried out by the Samsung Foundation of Culture (SFOC) as a social contribution.

Famous for its topographical grandeur and distinctiveness, Chilbosan is a mountain range located in northeastern Hamgyeong-do Province (modern-day North Korea) whose craggy peaks and uniquely shaped rocks, streams, and waterfalls are depicted skillfully and realistically in this painting. Though it was acquired in its current state of 10 separate scrolls, The Met decided to conserve the work as a 10-panel folding screen, the painting’s original format. Chilbosan has been transferred to the Leeum Museum of Art, an SFOC affiliate, where it will undergo treatment and remounting carried out by seasoned conservators in the museum’s Conservation Department using independently developed technologies. Once the conservation work is completed, Chilbosan will be shared with the public through exhibitions and various other means.

All of these opportunities are expected to have a significant impact on promoting the historical and artistic value of Korean cultural relics housed by major foreign institutions.

The OKCHF has undertaken a consistent effort to fortify networks of public-private cooperation in order to ensure the sustainability of cultural relic conservation. In 2025, it signed an MOU with the Seoul Museum of History to broaden cooperation through the museum’s participation in the OKCHF’s surveys, analyses, and conservation activities as a way of sharing talent.

The OKCHF’s conservation and support program, which is dedicated to the conservation, preservation, and utilization of Korean cultural assets abroad, has been active since 2013. So far, it has undertaken 64 projects with 34 institutions in 10 countries. It plans to redouble its efforts to preserve Korean cultural relics currently located overseas and engage in public-private collaborations to promote their value worldwide.

* Caption:

Image: Chilbosan (Seven Jeweled Mountain), 19th century, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), Korea. Set of 10 paintings previously in folding screen format; ink on cotton. Image (each): 47 5/8 × 11 1/8 in. (121 × 28.3 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Friends of Asian Art Gifts, 2020, 2020.118a-j