The Documentary Value of Repairs to the Hwarot, the Korean Bridal Robe
Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 6:30PM
Korean Cultural Service New York
Kisook Suh (Assistant Conservator in the Department of Textile Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Free Admission: RSVP @ (212) 756-8010
The Documentary Value of Repairs to the Hwarot, the Korean Bridal Robe
Kisook Suh
The Hwarot is one of the most representative Korean bridal robes from the Joseon dynasty (A.D. 1392-1910). It is made of fine red silk and embellished with embroidered flowers and auspicious symbolic motifs with colorful silk threads. Since the Hwarot was the most sumptuous bridal robe, not many examples from the Joseon dynasty are known to be extant. This lecture will introduce several Hwarots from the collections of a few museums in North America and England: Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Field Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. There also will be a discussion on the repair stitches and sewing patches of the Hwarots, regarding their documentary value: resources for their provenance as well as records of women’s work related to the wedding custom of the time.
Kisook Suh is assistant conservator in the Department of Textile Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was awarded Andrew W. Mellon Conservation Fellowship with her research on East Asian embroideries of China, Korea and Japan. She was previously employed by the National Folk Museum of Korea for conservation projects on excavated costume and textiles from the Joseon dynasty.