Auspicious beasts and fowls, the mythical animals like a dragon, a phoenix, or a girin (known as qilin in Chinese and kirin in Japanese), have long been considered propitious signs of great significance. The omens took on national importance on the basis of a belief that the heaven grants the auguries of good to a virtuous ruler who has achieved grand peace and prosperity; thus they differ from general auspicious symbols for private interests and fortune. Literary evidence and surviving examples suggest that paintings of the auspicious animals were produced in large numbers, carrying various traits and serving different functions, in the nineteenth century. One of the sources is the subject list from Nok chwi jae (the Bureau of Paintings examination for prizes) given to Jabi daeryeong hwawon (painters-in- waiting to the court) placed within Kyujanggak (Royal Library). According to the source that provides the richest records of auspicious animal paintings, most of the subjects highlight the auspiciousness of the mythical animals, allude to a didactic function that a painting would perform to remind the reigning King of his ruling duty, and serve to idealize the Royal House. Auspicious animal painting was also favored as decorative paintings. In particular, court decorative paintings employ a broad range of the mythical motifs from a phoenix with its nine chicks to wyverns or girin, to name a few. In most of the extant paintings, interestingly, the animals and their young ones appear together with general auspicious symbols such as peaches or [finger] citrons known as Buddha’s Hand. The combination of the former national auspicious signs and the latter general symbols for fortune suggests that the auspicious animals were regarded appropriate to convey the wish for the f lourishing and fertility of the royal house. It is well known that nineteenth-century paintings tend to bring together various subject matters and iconography. Likewise, the auspicious animals appear with iconography of the general symbols for good fortune as illustrated by Auspicious Animals and Symbols of Longevity , a ten-panel folding screen painting in the collection of Leeum. The decorative screen is marked by an unusual composition that collects ten symbols of longevity, auspicious animals such as a dragon, a phoenix, a girin and an imaginary bird, and even real birds like ducks and a peacock. In this painting, the coupling of male and female animals stands for conjugal fidelity while pairings of large and smaller animals represent an abundance of male offspring. When used in this context, the auspicious animals such as dragons and girin symbolize not only auspiciousness but also prolificacy. This painting shows that the auspicious animal motifs became part of the general auspicious symbols for prolificacy and longevity. Even though the Leeum screen stands alone among the surviving court decorative paintings, many folk-paintings suggest a proliferation of the type that combines the auspicious animals and the longevity motifs. The non-court paintings of auspicious animals simply followed in the path of the court painting styles without preserving the royal auspiciousness: no longer do the auspicious animal motifs work as a sign of national importance, but they changed into that for private interests. The motifs appear in various genres of folk-paintings (bird-and-f lower paintings, chaekgado or still-life paintings of bookshelves, and hunting scenes in addition to the abovementioned paintings of the ten symbols of longevity), which shows a transformative stage beyond a mere recycling of the royal imagery. In consequence, paintings of auspicious animals have taken on diverse aspects, since the auspicious signs for the royal house pertaining only to court paintings turned into general symbols and spread towards the domain of folk-paintings along with the popularization of court paintings.