Spirit House Shrine in Bamboo, Pine Tree and Mountain Landscape
ink and color pigment on paper, framed

A rocky outcropping serves as the platform for this painting of a single story green tile-roofed Spirit House with painted imitation silk border with stylized red flower designs throughout; no dedication in the shrine; the Spirit House situated in a temple courtyard with two pine trees and mountain landscape elements in the foreground; an altar table with two candle sticks and utensils for the rituals of ancestor worship siting in front of the spirit house bordered by two vases holding peach tree cuttings; a bamboo, pine tree and mountain landscape forms the background.

Spirit House paintings (gammo yeojae do or "Shrine Where the Ancestors Come When Worshipped": (gammo: “to adore with deep emotion”; yeojae: “to respectfullu address the spirits as if they were present at the ceremony”; and do: “painting”) sprang from the need to conduct essential rituals within modest circumstances and often replaced actual ancestral shrines in the late Joseon period. Ancestor worship was the primary duty of Korean families, who were morally obliged to worship their ancestors for at least three generations. A wealthy household often maintained a separate room, or even a separate building as an ancestral shrine: the room was equipped with special furniture and utensils for the rituals of ancestor worship; altar tables and offering stands as well as a small high chair that served as a throne for the ancestor’s spirit. Those without economic and social means could not afford to build an ancestral home or to host sumptuous banquets. Spirit House paintings were specifically intended for use in Joseon dynasty homes and an ancestral shrine was an integral part of every Korean house.

This painting is of particular interest because of its painted imitation silk border, and the exceptionally rare presence of the bamboo, pine tree, peach, and the mountain landscape elements and the shrine’s rocky outcropping platform, design motifs closely associated with Taoist Twelve Symbols of Long Life screen and Buddhist temple paintings of the same period, but not with Spirit House paintings commemorating departed ancestors. The space between the open doors of the Spirit House in this painting was left blank: on the anniversary of an ancestor’s death, a slip of paper inscribed with his posthumous name would have been pasted temporarily on the blank space.

Note:
For other Spirit House shrine paintings, see:
The Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii, Spirit House, catalogued 17th century, with a two-story Spirit House, a pine tree in background growing from viewer’s left to right and no dedication.
The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, Spirit Shrine, dated 1811, 67 5/16 x 56 5/8 in. (71.0 x 143.8 cm.), Accession No: 86.25, with a two-story Spirit House, two pine trees in background, the same outer entrance-inner courtyard arrangement as this painting, and dedicated to a former King and Queen of Korea.
The Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, Spirit House catalogued 18th century, Accession No: E301985, with a single-story Spirit House, a pine tree in background growing from viewer’s right to left, and no dedication.
The British Museum, London, England, Spirit House, catalogued 19th century, Accession No: 2010,3024.1, with a single-story Spirit House containing a mountain landscape screen, a pine tree in background growing from viewer’s right to left, and no dedication.
For two early 1900’s Spirit House shrine hand-colored prints made from the same wood-block, see:
Seoul Auction, Seoul, Korea, March 24, 2020, lot 124, Illustrated.
The Lea Sneider Estate, New York, New York and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.