ABSTRACT
Because pojagi, Korean wrapping cloths, were such an integral part of everyday life among all classes of people in Korea during the Chason dynasty (1392-1910) and until the 1950s, scarcely any attention was paid to these functional and ever-present objects for many centuries, and their unusual beauty remained unnoticed. It was not until the late I 960s-when Mr. Huh Dong-hwa, the director of the Museum of Korean Embroidery, first recognized an esthetic value in these wrapping cloths and began to collect them-that their striking beauty captured people's attention. Since the 1980s many exhibitions have been organized in Korea, Japan, Europe, and the United States to showcase the stunning beauty of pojagi made by Korean women. I
Although pojagi had probably been in use from the Three Kingdoms period (57 B.C.E.-668 C.E.), most extant examples date from the late Chason dynasty, except for a few pojagi, such as the one covering the table used by the illustrious Buddhist priest, Taegak Kuksa, Oich'on (1055-1101).2 The earliest extant Chason-dynasty pojagi are the seven wrapping cloths made in 1415 by Lady Yi to wrap and cover Buddhist sutras that her husband, Yu Kon, had copied. Three out of these seven
are wrapping cloths embroidered with designs of lotuses and other flowers, Tang scrolls, grasses, reeds, clouds, and cranes. (They are now in the collection of the Chonju Provincial Museum.3) Another early wrapping cloth that survives, in the collection of the Museum of Korean Embroidery in Seoul, is believed to have been used in 1681 on the occasion of the wedding of Princess M yong' an (1665-87)-daughter of King Hyonjong (r. 1659-74)-to 0 T'aeje.4
