1866 — Korea, Tonkin [Vietnam], circa 1866. Carte-de-visite albumen photographs of some of the earliest and most prominent Catholic priest martyrs who were tortured, maimed and killed in Korea and Tokin during persecution in the 1830s and 1860s. Thirteen (13) photographs, pasted onto a single nineteenth century framing matt, ensconced behind a window mount for an elegant presentation. Photographs vary slightly in size, the smallest measuring approximately 5,25 cm x 7,5 cm, and the largest 6 cm x 9,5 cm. Notable age-toning to some of the images, otherwise in very good condition, extraordinarily scare. The Kingdom of Korea, then an isolationist nation, was forbidden to foreigners and did not tolerate Christians. When a Chinese priest managed to secretly enter the country in the 1740s, he found 4,000 Catholics, none of whom had ever seen a priest. The dynamic Catholic communities were led almost entirely by educated laypeople from the aristocracy, as they were the only ones who could read the books that were written in Hanja. In 1801, during King Sunjo of Joseon's reign, Queen Jeongsun ordered a mass attack of Korean Catholics and suppressed Catholicism, in the belief that it conflicted with the tenets of Confucianism. Since the persecution of 1801, also known as the Sinyu Persecution, there had been no priest to care for the Christian community. Serious dangers awaited the missionaries who dared to enter Korea. The bishops and priests who confronted this danger, as well as the lay Christians who aided and sheltered them, were in constant threat of losing their lives. Eventually, two Chinese priests were sent from Beijing, but their ministry was short-lived, and another forty years passed before the Paris Foreign Mission Society began its work in Korea with the arrival of Father Maubant in 1836 who snuck in carefully guarding their purpose. Many arrived discreetly via China. All met and performed their missions in secrecy. Upon the authorities' learning of clandestine Christian activities, an edict was issued in April 1839 and followed by fierce persecution. It is estimated that 8,000 to 10,000 were killed for their faith in 19th-century Korea. Photo
