Bridal Panel (Korea)

Bridal panel for an over-robe from Korea, 18th-19th centuries. Bridal panel for an over-robe from Korea, 18th-19th centuries. Copyright Victoria and Albert Museum, London, acc. no. T.200-1920.

A Korean panel with a length of 125 cm and with fine embroidery is housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The panel is worked on a silk ground material with gold paper thread and silk thread. The panel was used for the over-robe of a Korean bride in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. She would wear this over-robe at her entrance to her new husband's family home.

Such panels were embroidered by the bride-to-be and her family in the months preceding the wedding. It includes auspicious motives, such as cranes, butterflies, peonies and lotuses. There is an embroidered text at the top left corner that says: "May the union of the two families be the source of ten thousand blessings."

Source: WILKINSON, Liz (1966). Birds, Bats & Butterflies in Korean Art, London: Sun Tree Publishing, Singapore, pp. 94-95.

V&A online catalogue (retrieved 10th July 2016).

WV

Last modified on Sunday, 04 June 2017 18:44
Published in Secular ceremonies and rituals
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