"Gongsurae Gongsugeo" by Hoam Lee Byung-chull [K Auction]
"Gongsurae Gongsugeo" by Hoam Lee Byung-chull [K Auction]

A calligraphy work by Lee Byung-chull, the late founder of Samsung Group, sold at auction for 100 million won ($67,800).

According to K Auction, the piece — a brushwork rendering of the phrase "Gongsurae Gongsugeo" (meaning "empty-handed we come, empty-handed we go") — sold Tuesday in a premium online auction that closed that day. The work had been held in the collection of Saemteo, a monthly cultural magazine.

The auction opened July 11 with a starting bid of 15 million won and an estimated value of 19 million to 40 million won. After multiple rounds of bidding, the piece sold for 100 million won — 2.5 times the upper end of the estimate. The buyer's identity has not been disclosed.

Lee wrote the calligraphy in 1981 as a gift to Kim Jae-soon (1923–2016), the founder of Saemteo and a former National Assembly speaker, and it had long hung in the magazine's boardroom.

Saemteo suspended publication indefinitely after its January issue this year amid financial difficulties, then put its collection up for auction, changing the work's ownership.


123@heraldcorp.com