---
node: shin_saimdang
type: person
slug: shin_saimdang
title: "Shin Saimdang"
lead: "Shin Saimdang (1504–1551) was an artist, calligrapher and poet of mid-Joseon, and the mother of the philosopher Yulgok Yi I. In 2009 she became the first woman on a South Korean banknote, the 50,000-won note."
published: 2026-07-09
updated: 2026-07-09
image_file: shin_saimdang.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Sin_Saimdang_at_Ojukheon.jpg"
image_author: "Christophe95"
image_license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---


## Who they were

Raised unusually well-educated in Gangneung, she won fame for painting, calligraphy, poetry and embroidery designs. She was also the mother of Yulgok Yi I, one of Joseon's great philosophers.

## What they did

She is celebrated for delicate paintings of plants and insects; the grape and grass-and-insect works attributed to her are treasured, though the attributions are traditional. Later Joseon moralists refashioned her into the ideal of the "wise mother, good wife" — a construction that scholars distinguish from the educated artist seen in the sources.

## Legacy

In 2009 she became the first woman on a South Korean banknote, the 50,000-won note, while her son Yulgok appears on the 5,000-won note. She remains Joseon's most famous woman artist, and the subject of a continuing debate about how her image has been used.