Highlights from the Korean Textile Collection at The Textile Museum

Abstract: In 2022, The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum presented a remarkable exhibition on the aesthetics and craftsmanship of Korean traditional and contemporary textile arts, Korean Fashion: From Royal Court to Runway . The exhibition shed a long-overdue spotlight on Korean textiles and their complex history, using a number of objects from The Textile Museum’s collection. Following in the footsteps of Korean Fashion , this article aims to introduce the Korean collection at The Textile Museum by sharing the historical narratives of these textiles with readers. From formal analysis to provenance research, the article will examine the Korean textiles from various angles and contextualize them within the multifaceted history of Korean and Asian textiles. The article will highlight three types of objects from The Textile Museum’s Korean collections. First, it will showcase Korean rank badges from the nineteenth century, especially those collected and donated by renowned anthropologist and collector Schuyler Cammann (1912–1991). The next category is tapestry, a type of Korean textile that had received little scholarly attention until the past decade. The article will delineate the historiography of Korean tapestries, from their rediscovery via a 2016 exhibition at Kyungwoon Museum to the differing perspectives of Korean and international scholars. Lastly, the article will discuss the recent acquisitions of modern Korean garments from Museum Trustee Young Yang Chung for display in the exhibition Korean Fashion . Together, these textiles represent the diverse spectrum of the Korean collections at The Textile Museum.