Seongju-san
700 meters up a steep, narrow, twisting cemented road, this isolated modern Jogye-Order
hermitage contains an extraordinary treasure, normally hidden from public view.
South Chungcheong Province
  Boryeong  City
Baegun-sa
The White Cloud Temple
In the Residential Hall (above photo), normally off-limits to outsiders, is this axillary shrine, featuring a wooden
Amita-bul statue, a small Dokseong statue, other icons and a magnificent 19th-Century Sanshin painting!
Blue Dragon chasing the flaming pearl on the rear of the Gungnak-jeon Hall
Gungnak-jeon Hall, now serving as Baegun-sa's Main Hall
The modern Chilseong painting,
and its Bukseong-shin the North
Star Spirit of Longevity
regal and serious, with a "crown" of red maple leaves
The boy-dongja holding a staff-with-gourd is more usually seen in
Sanshin paintings, while the girl-dongja offering herbs of immortality
either has a live white dove perching on her head or is wearing a
stuffed white dove as a hat; either way it's unique and amazing!
Biseon flying-angel offering sacred fruits, on its interior wall
Good antique Shinjung-taenghwa
painting in this Gungnak-jeon Hall,
featuring Sanshin holding a fan of
feathers of a black-&-white crane,
below a girl-dongja offering sacred
fruits with the Chilseong seven
stars of the big dipper in her hair!
Also found there is this excellent modern Dokseong painting,
with fantastic detail and an unusual richness of dongja figures
roof-tiles on donation-sale outside, for construction of the new Main Hall, Sanshin-gak and others
on the opposite wall of the nook from Sanshin is this old depiction of the
Spirit of Tae-san (Tai-shan) as one of the Ten Judgement Kings of Hell
This mountain-king is rather sad-looking, for unknown reasons, but jaunty in a blue regal-Daoist cloud-cap.  He holds a
sprig of coral from the ocean, a bit like an animal-horn, which is very rare but not unique.  There is a mantle of palowina
leaves on his shoulders, and also around the waist of one of the dongja, signifying his link to Korea's Founding-King
Dan-gun.  There are four dongja (3 boys & a girl), a high number for an antique icon, offering herbs and fruits of fertility
and immortality;  note the charming lotus-leaf hat on one of the boys, a folk-buddhist motif.  The tiger is excellently crazy,
absurdly fat and covered in leopard spots -- displaying all the best aspects of Korean folk-tiger paintings that Zo Zayong
loved so much.  Altogether, one of the most valuable antiques I've ever found in all these years of hunting...!