In 1728, the fourth year of his fifty-two-year reign, King Yeongjo's army confronted an attempted coup. Fueled by the growth of conspiracy theories surrounding the sudden death of Yeongjo's half brother, King Gyeongjong, the rebellion was led by disaffected members of oppositional factions, some of them high-ranking officials within the royal court itself. The conflict was violent but brief; after less than three weeks of fighting, the army that had been raised and the territories that had been seized were returned to the Crown, along with the severed heads of the opposition leaders.
A recent exhibit at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum shed light on the political impact of this event on Yeongjo's strategy for governance, focusing on specially commissioned portraits and material objects associated with the aftermath of the insurrection.1 At the same time, the exhibit advanced awareness of Joseon-era portraiture, an artistic genre that has received very...
