Kind · Palace or folk
Folk (commoners') wrapping cloth
Minbo is the name for ordinary households' bojagi, sewn at home by anonymous women and including most patchwork and embroidered cloths.
- Meaning
- 'people's wrapper' (民 the people + 褓 wrapping cloth)
- Made of
- 모시, 삼베, 무명, 명주 and scraps
- Era
- Joseon-20th c.
Bojagi made and used by ordinary households, by anonymous women. They include most 조각보 and 수보.
In museum collections
History & tradition
Joseon to mid-20th century households, all regions
Minbo were the cloths ordinary households made and used, sewn by women whose names went unrecorded. A girl's trousseau traditionally included a stock of bojagi. Since cloth was scarce, leftover scraps went into patchwork, and wedding pieces were embroidered at home. Most surviving minbo date from the 19th and early 20th centuries; they went out of daily use as bags and paper packaging took over after the 1950s.
Minbo, especially jogakbo, are what museums abroad mostly collect and what contemporary bojagi artists reinterpret.