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Iconographic Meaning

The pink cord indicates that the child wearing the ornament was a girl.

Specific Techniques

The threads in each strand were plied with a reverse twist, leaving a tiny circle at the end of each strand. As tassels were wrapped, strands of silk were pulled to the surface, creating patterns,

Description

An onament made of an elaborately knotted pink cord with a bell and two tassels attached. Above the bell, there is a loop, below which, there is a lozenge-shaped flat knotted shape. Below the bell, there is a smaller looped pattern. The bell is spherical with a slit in the bottom half. The bell is silver-coloured with inlaid discs of blue, purple, blue-green, and yellow enamel each with a Chinese character, and with lines of dots of the same colours in between. The two tassels are attached below the second knotted design. They have multicoloured strands and are 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. Bells were added for children. Bells were used as rattles for children, but also were worn by children because the sound repels devils, because children like the sound, because they make a joyful sound appropriate to children, and so their parents could locate them. Silver was commonly used for ornaments in the Chosun Dynasty. The tassels worn by children were more colourful than those worn by adults. Auspicious characters were used to protect children, as their survival was precarious at that time. The metal bells and tassels were made by specialists, but the ornaments likely were created by children’s mothers.