Accession No
0935
Brief Description
folding astronomical screen, Korean, 1757 (c)
Origin
Korea
Maker
Class
astronomy
Earliest Date
1757
Latest Date
1757
Inscription Date
Material
wood; paper; metal (brass); cloth
Dimensions
height 2285mm; breadth of each panel 555mm; thickness 17mm
Special Collection
Provenance
Purchased from Dr Chester Chang (great grandson of Queen Myungsung of Korea) with the assistance of Jospeph Needham, in 1966. comes from the Royal Palace of the Yi Dynasty in Seoul.
Inscription
Description Notes
Folding astronomical screen, Korean, c. 1757.
Folding screen with wooden frame and cloth backing. In eight panels, with cloth hinges. Front covered by paper: narrow decorative strip at top and wider one at the base. Left most panel carries diagram of the planets of the solar system. The next four panels carry a pair of planispheres copied from Chinese block print of 1723; the last three panels carry a Korean planisphere dating from the 7th Century. Text beneath the diagrams.
Complete
References
Events
Description
This folding screen compares the mid-eighteenth century map of the sky with the earliest recorded star maps held in the Korean state archive. Composed of eight panels, the far left has diagrams of the planets of the solar system. The next four panels depict maps of the stars in the northern and southern hemispheres and were copied from a Chinese block print of 1723. The three right-had panels contain a copy of a Korean planisphere daring from the 7th century. Text beneath the diagrams there is a brief history of astronomy in Korea since 672. The Chinese copyied lpainshere are titled ‘General maps of the stars in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres on Ecliptic co-ordinates’. They were the work of Ignatius Kögler (1680–1746), a Jesuit who missioned in China and worked in the Chinese Bureau of Astronomy. The planispheres show the stars in their traditional Chinese constellations and retain the ancient colouring conventions. The ecliptic projects followed European practice.
08/07/2014
Created by: Allison Ksiazkiewicz on 08/07/2014
FM:45414
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