A great number of the seals of kings and emperors were made throughout the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) and Korean Empire (the final years of the Joseon Dynasty, 1897-1910). The most representative of them are？National Seal (guksae) and Royal Seal (eobo)？used for official government documents and the commemoration of state-sponsored rituals, respectively. Since these seals were valued as the insignia of the sovereign state as well as the symbol of the prestige of the royal house, ridge rules and formalities had been applied from the initial process of their production to the later preservation.

However, the Korean Empire was forcefully annexed to Japan, and even after the liberation, from experiencing the Korean War, a substantial quantity of cultural properties were illegal exported abroad. A part of the seals of Joseon and the Korean Empire inevitably underwent a similar faith. In the exhibition, nine seals originally from the Deoksugung Palace recently returned from the United States are showcased for the public.

The nine seals include the national seal produced upon King Gojong’s proclamation of the establishment of the Korean Empire (Seal of Hwangje) and the royal seal with the eulogistic posthumous title of King Gojong (Seal of ex-Emperor Sugang). These seals glaringly reflect the Korean Empire’s determination to validate its dignity as a sovereign empire and to establish a rightfulindependentnation.

Additionally, the exhibits also include a complete collection of surviving national seals of the Korean Empire. We hope to provide the public with the chance to appreciate our valuable cultural assets, which were safely returned to their homeland owing to the cooperative efforts of both Korean and American governments, and reflect on the our history.