Kind · Palace or folk
Palace wrapping cloth
Gungbo were the single-piece silk and ramie wrapping cloths made for the Joseon royal court and logged in its inventories.
- Meaning
- 'palace wrapper' (宮 palace + 褓 wrapping cloth)
- Made of
- 주(紬) silk, 단(緞) satin, 저포(苧布) ramie, 서양목 cotton (late), oiled paper
- Era
- Joseon, esp. 19th-early 20th c.
Bojagi made for and used by the royal court, recorded in 보발기 (褓發記) inventories. Court types named in the records include 맛보 (food cover), 인문보, 갸자보 and 짐보. Surviving palace examples include oiled-paper food covers, 당채 painted cloths, red silk cloths that wrapped royal seals, jewelry wrappers (패물보), and large 5-폭 hemp cloths. Palace examples are mostly single pieces of fine silk or ramie, not patchwork.
In museum collections
History & tradition
Joseon royal court, Seoul; best documented 1752–1910
Court bojagi were made to set sizes counted in 폭 (one 폭 ≈ 34–35 cm), as the 상방정례 (1752) laid out, and every order was logged in 보발기 lists, mostly for royal weddings and state rites. Thirteen such lists survive; the 1882 wedding of the future Sunjong and the planned 1907 wedding are among them. Cost per piece jumped from under 3 냥 before 1906 to 65–350 냥 afterwards. Ink notes on the cloths record a year and the palace hall that stored them, not the maker.
The 133 Changdeokgung cloths catalogued in 1981 are now held by the National Palace Museum of Korea.