New Research on Central Asian Paintings in the National Museum of Korea

The National Museum of Korea in Seoul (hereafter NMK) houses part of the Ōtani collection, consisting of artifacts collected between 1902 and 1914 during archaeological expeditions organized by Ōtani Kōzui (1876–1948) in various parts of Asia, including Central Asia, Tibet, and India. Most of the Ōtani artifacts at NMK are from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in China. One of the major issues in the study of these artifacts has been the difficulty of identifying individual pieces, as the original documents written by those who participated in the Ōtani expeditions rarely record the context of their excavation. The basic information on the artifacts was recorded on a master list, which is thought to have been composed when they were brought to Korea in 1916, but the list has been found to contain many errors. In this context, it is particularly important that these artifacts be subjected to scientific investigation in the hopes of finding evidence to support theories of their identification and origin, which have thus far been based mostly on art historical research. In 2012 curators and conservators of NMK conducted collaborative research on the paintings from the collection and were able to find additional information that helps to identify the artifacts. This essay introduces the major findings of that research, which involves Mı̄rān paintings, Pran ̇ idhi paintings from the Bezeklik Caves, and paintings from the Toyuk Caves.