The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Vertically long work in ink on paper depicting the Nine-Dragon Falls, black and grey jagged mountain peaks curving down slightly at which a white waterfall pours forth in a continuous stream. The rough strip of a cloud, outlined in light blue, cuts horizontally across the center of the composition. Trees with grey, green, and red speckles for leaves cover the rocks below the cloud. Three people stand on a rocky outcropping on the lower right.

Nine-Dragon Falls

late 1800s

Han Unpyeong

(Korean)
Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
ink and color on paper
Overall: 71 x 40.7 cm (27 15/16 x 16 in.); Painting only: 59.4 x 28.2 cm (23 3/8 x 11 1/8 in.)
Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust 1915.215
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

The Nine-Dragon Falls, the main subject of this painting, is about 240 feet (74 meters) high.

Description

The Nine-Dragon Falls 구룡포 is one of the popular tourist sites at the Diamond Mountain 금강산 in North Korea. Its V-shaped valley that opens into a rushing white waterfall is its major attraction, allowing visitors to experience the powerful forces of nature. In this painting, two excited scholar tourists accompanied by a Buddhist monk are enjoying both the spectacle and the roar generated by the cascading waterfall.
  • ?–1915
    (Jean Lawson, New York, NY, sold to the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust as gift for the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1915–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Keith, Elizabeth. Eastern Windows: An Artist's Notes of Travel in Japan, Hokkaido, Korea, China, and the Philippines. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1928.
    Pak Un-sun. A Study of Paintings of Mt. Geumgang [금강산도 연구] . Seoul: Iljisa, 1997.
    Our Land, Our True-View Landscape [우리 땅, 우리의 진경]. Chuncheon: Chuncheon National Museum, 2002.
    Seon Seung-hye. The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011. Reproduced: cat. no. 18
    Treasures from Korea: Arts and Culture of the Joseon Dynasty, 1392-1910. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014.
    Lee, So-young, Ahn Dae-hoe, Chin-Sung Chang, and Lee Soo-mi. Diamond Mountains: Travel and Nostalgia in Korean Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018.
    MCormick, Sooa. “North of the Border: A preview of the Korean gallery’s new display, coming in January.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine vol. 58. no. 6 (November/December 2018): 16–17. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 17 archive.org
    Through the Eyes of Joseon Painters: Real Scenery Landscapes of Korea [화가의시선: 조선시대실경산수화]. Seoul: National Museum of Korea, 2019.
    Korean Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Seoul: Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation, 2021. Reproduced: p. 22, fig. 2
  • From Dreaming to Hiking: Korean Landscape Paintings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 1-September 29, 2024).
    Mountains and Rivers Beyond the DMZ – Korean Gallery 236 Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 21-July 21, 2019).
    The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 15-August 21, 2011).
  • {{cite web|title=Nine-Dragon Falls|url=false|author=Han Unpyeong|year=late 1800s|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1915.215