Empress’ carpet found in museum
National Museum of Korea announced on Wednesday that it had found a relic similar to the lost leopard carpet assumed to have been in Empress Myeongseong’s office, in its collection.
The empress’ carpet, made of 48 leopards’ pelts, was lost on its way back to Korea after it was taken to the U.S. during the Korean War.
The case of the carpet recently regained the public’s attention as an NGO headed by a Buddhist nun Hyemun that aims to retrieve Korean relics taken out of the country and Lay Buddhist Association for Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism raised the issue last Tuesday, calling on the government to track down the lost carpet.
“The Cultural Heritage Administration sent an official document requesting to check if the museum has the carpet in question. We found the carpet within our collection, immediately, and decided to show it to the public right away,” said a museum official.
Hugh V. Giltner, a U.S. soldier, had bought the carpet from a street vendor for $25 in April 1951, and sent it to his parents in the U.S. as a present. His father was an antique collector.
But as the carpet was too large -- 2.5 meters by 5.6 meters -- to keep inside the house, Giltner took it to Joseph R. Simmons, a fur dealer. Recognizing the value of the precious carpet from Korea, Simmons showed the carpet to the media. A U.S. magazine ran a story on the carpet, “The Sergeant‘s Souvenir” in its Aug. 28, 1951 issue.
Korean Consulate General in New York reacted immediately, announcing a statement asking for the return of the carpet. The carpet was stolen from empress Myeongseong’s office and is a priceless treasure, it said.
U.S. Customs Office is known to have confiscated the carpet from Giltner and sent it back to Korea.
“According to our research on relics taken out of the country to the U.S., the leopard carpet was categorized as a looted good during the Korean War and it is known to have been returned to the Korean Embassy in the U.S. between August 1951 and February 1952. But it went missing after that. We suspect that a powerful man at the time could have hid it,” said Ven. Hyemun.
Museum officials said that there is high possibility that the carpet revealed by the museum -- 2.43 meters wide and 5.74 meters long with six vertical patterns and red cloth on the edges -- is the long lost carpet.
“It is certain that the carpet was produced to be used inside the palace, based on the plum flower pattern on the back, and that it is very similar to the carpet we are looking for, as the margin of error regarding the size is within 3 cm and it is similar to the carpet seen in the photo published in Life, a U.S. magazine, in 1951. The carpet has very high value as there are no other relics that can be compared to this,” said Lim Jae-wan, a museum official.
But there is no specific proof that empress Myeongseong had actually owned or used the carpet.
“Scholars have different opinions on when the plum flower pattern began to be used within the palace. But many presume that it was after 1897. So since empress Myeongseong was murdered two years before that, there is also a possibility that the empress did not actually use the carpet. There is also a possibility that there was more than one carpet of this kind in the palace,” said Lim.
By Park Min-young (claire@heraldm.com)
The empress’ carpet, made of 48 leopards’ pelts, was lost on its way back to Korea after it was taken to the U.S. during the Korean War.
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| The leopard carpet found by the National Museum of Korea National Museum of Korea |
“The Cultural Heritage Administration sent an official document requesting to check if the museum has the carpet in question. We found the carpet within our collection, immediately, and decided to show it to the public right away,” said a museum official.
Hugh V. Giltner, a U.S. soldier, had bought the carpet from a street vendor for $25 in April 1951, and sent it to his parents in the U.S. as a present. His father was an antique collector.
But as the carpet was too large -- 2.5 meters by 5.6 meters -- to keep inside the house, Giltner took it to Joseph R. Simmons, a fur dealer. Recognizing the value of the precious carpet from Korea, Simmons showed the carpet to the media. A U.S. magazine ran a story on the carpet, “The Sergeant‘s Souvenir” in its Aug. 28, 1951 issue.
Korean Consulate General in New York reacted immediately, announcing a statement asking for the return of the carpet. The carpet was stolen from empress Myeongseong’s office and is a priceless treasure, it said.
U.S. Customs Office is known to have confiscated the carpet from Giltner and sent it back to Korea.
“According to our research on relics taken out of the country to the U.S., the leopard carpet was categorized as a looted good during the Korean War and it is known to have been returned to the Korean Embassy in the U.S. between August 1951 and February 1952. But it went missing after that. We suspect that a powerful man at the time could have hid it,” said Ven. Hyemun.
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| A plum flower pattern on the back of the leopard carpet revealed by the National Museum of Korea |
“It is certain that the carpet was produced to be used inside the palace, based on the plum flower pattern on the back, and that it is very similar to the carpet we are looking for, as the margin of error regarding the size is within 3 cm and it is similar to the carpet seen in the photo published in Life, a U.S. magazine, in 1951. The carpet has very high value as there are no other relics that can be compared to this,” said Lim Jae-wan, a museum official.
But there is no specific proof that empress Myeongseong had actually owned or used the carpet.
“Scholars have different opinions on when the plum flower pattern began to be used within the palace. But many presume that it was after 1897. So since empress Myeongseong was murdered two years before that, there is also a possibility that the empress did not actually use the carpet. There is also a possibility that there was more than one carpet of this kind in the palace,” said Lim.
By Park Min-young (claire@heraldm.com)
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