[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Encykorea-\uac04\uc1a1\ubbf8\uc220\uad00.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tOn July 23, the Kansong Art Museum in Seoul hosted a ceremony to mark the return of two Qing Dynasty stone lion sculptures to China. According to a report in the South Korean publication Yonhap News Agency<\/em>, the ceremony was attended by Chun In-keon, director of the Kansong Art Museum, You Hong-june, director of the National Museum of Korea, Dai Bing, the Chinese ambassador to South Korea, and Rao Quan, head of China\u2019s National Cultural Heritage Administration. The lions\u2019 return had been arranged at a meeting between the two countries in early January. <\/p>\n The statues were purchased by Jeon Hyeong-pil, a Korean art collector and philanthropist, from an auction in Osaka, Japan, in 1933. Jeon (who also went by the name of Kansong, or Gansong in Korea) established the Bohwagak museum five years later, in 1938. According to the museum\u2019s website, its purpose was to preserve Korean cultural artifacts, especially in response to Japanese Imperialist policies. Jeon died in 1962, at which point his son and other relatives took over the collection, eventually changing its name to the Kansong Art Museum in 1966.<\/p>\n \n\tThe collection includes examples of calligraphy, painting, ceramics, metal- and stonework. The museum\u2019s website categorizes 11 objects as \u201cnational treasures\u201d: 15th-century battle records, 12th- and 13th-century celadon objects, two bronze Buddhas, and a white porcelain vase.<\/p>\n \n\tThe lions themselves are sitting on their haunches on tall plinths and have menacing expressions. They are each over 6 feet tall and weigh over a ton. They have been a fixture at the museum for almost a century, and currently stand on either side of the museum\u2019s entrance. China plans to restore the sculptures and display them at a national museum within a year. Dai, the Chinese diplomat to Korea, saw this event a positive sign of future collaboration. \u201cI believe the two countries can expand various cooperation and exchanges regarding displaced cultural heritage and enhance friendly sentiments between their peoples,\u201d he said at the ceremony, according to Yonhap<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tOn the homepage is a black-and-white photo of two smiling stone tigers. These statues will replace the lions once they make their way back to China.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/south-korean-museum-returns-two-qing-dynasty-lion-sculptures-china-1234793289\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Encykorea-\uac04\uc1a1\ubbf8\uc220\uad00.jpg?w=1024″] On July 23, the Kansong Art Museum in Seoul hosted a ceremony to mark the return of two Qing Dynasty stone lion sculptures to China. According to a report in the South Korean publication Yonhap News Agency, the ceremony was attended by Chun In-keon, director of the Kansong Art Museum, You Hong-june, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2058905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2058905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2058905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2058905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2058905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}