A Pair of Rank Badges with Single Crane Motif (1800s): Art, History and Details

A Pair of Rank Badges with Single Crane Motif (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Traditionally, square silk badges with embroidered birds and animals were worn on the front and back of official costumes. Rather than simple ornaments, rank badges represent the status of the wearer, with different animals indicating the hierarchy of ranks. The single crane, as on these rank badges, was worn by civil officials of the fourth or higher ranks.

Object facts

• Title: A Pair of Rank Badges with Single Crane Motif
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk, satin damask weave; silk thread embroidery
• Dimensions: object: 25.4 x 25.4 cm (10 x 10 in.); Mounted: 43.2 x 78.1 cm (17 x 30 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 2019.78

A detail from the museum

Many different types of stitches are used in this pair of rank badges. One of them is the couching stitch that uses a thicker foundation thread and a thinner thread. In this work, gold thread is used as the foundation thread.

Collection credit

Alma Kroeger Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Chung, Young Yang, Silken Threads: A History of Embroidery in China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, New York, 2005.
• Rank Badges [흉배]. Seoul: National Folk Museum of Korea, 2000.
• Embroidery Patterns [문양]. Seoul: Daewonsa, 2004.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.