Tassel Ornament

Item number N3.38 from the MOA: University of British Columbia.

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Description

An ornament made of two elaborately knotted pink, green, and gold silk cords with two large tassels attached to each, all of which are suspended from two pink cords. Below the cords, there is an elaborate knotted design in pink, green, and gold, below which, there is a larger lozenge-shaped flat knotted shape. The tassels have strands grouped according to their colours: red, dark pink, yellow-green, yellow, and dark blue-purple which also show at the top of each tassel. Each is wrapped at the top with gold thread that has a pattern picked out of the tassels’ strands on the surface of each wrapped area.

History Of Use

There were many kinds of tassel ornaments “no-ri-gae” in the Chosun Dynasty, worn either hanging from the ribbon tie of the upper garment “jo-go-ri” or from the waist tie. Large tassel ornaments could be used by adults to decorate eyeglass cases, for example. Bells and small cases were added for children. Silver was commonly used for such ornaments in the Chosun Dynasty. The cases were used to contain incense or medicines to revive children, such as “chung-sim-hwan”. The small tassels worn by children were normally more colourful than those worn by adults. The tassels were made by specialists.