Property of various owners ANONYMOUS (19TH CENTURY)Lotus and Fish Joseon dynasty (1392-1897), 19th century The six-panel screen painted in ink and colors on paper, mounted on silvered paper, depicting fish, swallows, and ducks among blossoming lotus 40 1/4 x 79in (102.3 x 200.7cm), continuous image only; 84 x 90 1/2in (213.3 x 230cm) overall Provenance Formerly in a West-Coast private collection, acquired in Korea, 1950s-60s The screen was later re-mounted in 1970s in the Japanese style. The fish was a symbolically significant and popular allegory in both Chinese and Korean Art and was the subject of paintings and works of art as early as the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD). Historically, the fish was cited prominently and frequently as an allegory for "freedom from restraints" in the famed Daoist book Zhuangzi , written by the influential early philosopher Zhuang Zhou (ca.369- ca. 386 BC), as an important and noble Daoist ideal to strive for in one's lifetime. To the educated, literati observer of Joseon-dynasty Neo-Confucian Korea, such imagery would have clearly and directly evoked this same Daoist ideal.