Kansong Museum puts 2 treasures up for auction

Treasure No. 285 Gilt-bronze Standing Bodhisattva, left, and No. 284 Gilt-bronze Standing Buddha from the collection of the Kansong Art Museum are up for auction at K Auction, slated for Wednesday. Yonhap

By Kwon Mee-yoo

The Kansong Art Museum, one of the top private museums in Korea which inherited the collection of Kansong Chun Hyung-pil (1906-1962), has put two of its state-designated Treasures up for auction citing financial difficulties.

The Gilt-bronze Standing Buddha (Treasure No. 284) and the Gilt-bronze Standing Bodhisattva (No. 285) will be auctioned at K Auction Wednesday. The starting bids are estimated at around 1.5 billion won ($121 million) for each, but the auction company said the exact starting price will be announced on the day.

This is the first time for a state-designated cultural property from the museum to be put up for auction.

Chun was the protector of Korean cultural properties under Japanese colonial rule. He collected Korean antiques with money out of his own pocket to prevent them from being taken overseas and established Bohwagak, the first private museum in Korea, later renamed the Kansong Art Museum, in 1938. Chun's collection is managed by his sons and grandsons who founded the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation to better care for the cultural assets.

The museum tried to maintain its independence, but managing a collection of over 4,000 artifacts and operating a museum privately for over eight decades has not been easy.

Only recently, the Kansong Museum became registered as a private museum and received financial assistance for the costly restoration of the Bohwagak building, and the construction of a new storage space and an annex in the southeastern city of Daegu.

The Kansong Museum wanted to auction the items quietly and K Auction did not post the two Buddhist statues in its catalogue or in an online preview, but the information leaked out. As the news has stirred up a controversy, the museum published an announcement.

"The Kansong Museum has been striving to follow the will of Kansong, protecting and researching our Korean cultural heritage. We established the Kansong Foundation to serve the public interest better, but such efforts have become expensive. After former President Chun Sung-woo, the son of Kansong, passed away in 2018, we suffered more financial troubles despite help from the National Tax Service, the Cultural Heritage Administration and the Seoul Metropolitan Government,” the museum said in the announcement.

"We are truly sorry about our decision to sell part of our collection, obtained by Kansong himself. However, we will focus on the collection's primary objects of paintings and books after disposing of Buddhism-related artifacts. We made a tough decision for the future of the Kansong Art Museum.”