'Treasures of Korea' — Lee Kun-hee Collection Opens in Washington, D.C.
Creatrip Team
4 months ago
The National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. opened “Korean Treasures: Collect, Cherish, Share,” the first overseas showing of the Lee Kun-hee Collection. The exhibition presents 330 works, including seven national treasures and 15 treasures, spanning Joseon royal artifacts (such as an okcheok—jade document used to confer posthumous royal honorifics called jonho(존호)) to modern art. Visitors—K-drama fans, Korean American residents, and people nostalgic for Korea—praised the rare opportunity to see items they’d only known from dramas or previous museum visits. The opening was delayed by a U.S. federal government shutdown that briefly closed the museum. Locals noted the museum’s limited Korean holdings compared with Chinese and Japanese displays and welcomed more Korean exhibitions abroad.
