National Museum of Korea Surpasses 5 Million Visitors, but Artifact Acquisition Budget Frozen for a Decade
October 22, 2025 | In the PressFrom Maeil Business Newspaper (https://www.mk.co.kr/en/culture/11448105)
This year, the National Museum of Korea surpassed 5.1 million visitors, but there are concerns that its artifact acquisition budget has remained stagnant for a decade.
According to data submitted by Min Hyung-bae, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) on the Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee of the National Assembly, the museum’s annual artifact purchase budget has averaged about 4 billion won per year from 2015 to 2024.
The acquisition budget started at 3.98 billion won in 2015, saw a slight increase to 3.987 billion won between 2017 and 2019, but has been frozen at 3.979 billion won for five consecutive years since 2020.
There have been ongoing concerns about the National Museum of Korea’s insufficient acquisition budget. For instance, in 2022, when descendants of Jeon Hyeong-pil (Gansong) put two national treasures—the Gilt-bronze Standing Buddha Triad with Inscription of 'Gyemi Year' and the Gilt-bronze Triad Buddha Shrine—up for auction, the museum reportedly did not participate. The combined starting price for these artifacts was 6 billion won, exceeding the museum’s annual budget.
In 2020, the Gansong family also auctioned the Gilt-bronze Standing Buddha and Gilt-bronze Standing Bodhisattva, but the National Museum of Korea did not take part. Later, the museum acquired the two unsold pieces for less than 3 billion won.
The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) is also facing criticism for its limited acquisition budget. Since peaking at 6.107 billion won in 2017, MMCA’s annual acquisition budget has steadily declined, remaining at 4.846 billion won for four consecutive years from 2021 through last year.
The lawmaker’s office pointed out, 'Given that the consumer price index has risen by 19.98% over the past decade, the real purchasing power of museums and galleries has effectively turned negative.'
The gap with leading overseas institutions is also significant. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in the United States had a total acquisition budget of $229.59 million (about 326.9 billion won) from the second half of 2018 to the first half of 2022. This averages about 81.7 billion won per year—20 times the annual budget of the National Museum of Korea. The British Museum, which attracted about 6.48 million visitors last year, reportedly spent an average of 20.1 billion won annually on acquisitions.
