Yi Doyeong laid a foundation of modern still-life painting in Korea, although the painter himself did not produce it in earnest. In particular, two productions should be noted with regards to Yi’s embrace of the still-life: Yeonpilhwa-imbon (pencil drawings for painting), the textbook published in 1915, and Still-life presented to the first Joseon Arts Exhibition of 1922. The Yeonpilhwa is a sketching textbook addressing everyday objects and natural motifs, whereas the Still-life takes a body of splendid antiques as a theme to conjure up cultural pride. Both works show a course of transformation from traditional Gimyeong-jeolji-do (painting of precious vessels with f lowering plants and/or fruits, a distinct and popular genre in nineteenth-century Korea) to modern still-life painting, the change facilitated by Yi’s embraces of a new painting method—drawing from nature—and of nationalistic underpinnings of artistic production. Inspired from Japanese painting education and exhibitions, both the Yeonpilhwa and the Still-life display a strong motivation to promote the spread of a new art pedagogic system and a clear path toward a distinctive Joseon style painting. Taking its precedent from Japanese drawing textbooks including Koto shogaku enpitsu-ga tehon published by the Monbushō (the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture) in 1904, the Yeonpilhwa assumes a teaching method to combine drawing from nature and copying an old painting. Unlike the predecessors, however, Yi Doyeong excluded graphic designs and put more stress on pencil drawings from nature, the editorial emphasis that discloses Yi’s strong interests in the new painting. In 1922, Yi Doyeong participated in the first Joseon Arts Exhibition as a committee member and submitted the Still-life as a referential work. It was just two years earlier when Yi paid an eight-month-long visit to Tokyo and its art circles where he built a social connection to a group of renowned local painters. Further notably, the way in which Yi’s Still-life employs antique vessels of historical implications as a representative motif to give the gist of national culture is considerably analogous to the way in which Japanese painters used them to assert the superiority of Japanese culture over the West. Yi’s observation and treatment of the artifacts remain less substantial and inclined to a nationalistic cause, however, as his depiction of the stoneware vessels from the Silla kingdom (57 BCE-676 CE) and of celadon from the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392) is modeled mostly after photographs reproduced in catalogues of national and royal treasures, including Illustrated Catalogue of Joseon Historic Places and Remains and Photographic Album of the Collection in the Museum of the Yi Royal Family. As discussed, Yi Doyeong’s still-life painting saw its limited establishment on the basis of his embraces of drawing from nature and of nationalism and upon the compromise with traditional Gimyeong-jeolji-do. And yet the Yeonpilhwa (1915) and the Still-Life (1922) demonstrate the pictorial achievements of Yi who has pioneered the modernized institutionalization of art education and exhibition.