Collection: Willard Dickerman Straight and Early U.S.-Korea Diplomatic Relations, Cornell University Library

Title: Corean beauty

Date: ca. 1904

Place: Asia: South Korea

Type: Postcards/Ephemera

Description: A young 'kisaeng' (singing girl) in full Korean traditional dress. She has a typical married women's hair style (jjok), which is called chignon with a hairpin (the 'pinyo'). Korean 'kisaeng', or singing girls, dressed up for singing and dancing. A 'Kisaeng's' social position was among the lowest in the traditional Korean class system. Their daughters also became 'kisaeng' and their sons became slaves. The art of entertaining of the 'kisaeng' is analogous to the Japanese geisha. These professional entertainers were highly trained in the arts of poetry, music, dance, and other forms of social or artistic diversion. eIn the early 1900s, 'kisaeng' did their hair up in a 'chignon' and wear shorter jackets (about 7-8 inches) than ordinary women - The skirts were cut with a full slit at the back and were fixed to the right side, while upper class women's skirt were fixed to the left.e Source: Kwon, O-chang. Inmurhwaro ponun Choson sidae uri ot, 1998, p. 140.

Inscription/Marks: Pencilled inscription on verso of image: 'Corean beauty'

Identifier: 1260.74.12.06

Persistent URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1813.001/5xs8

There are no known U.S. copyright restrictions on this image. The digital file is owned by the Cornell University Library which is making it freely available with the request that, when possible, the Library be credited as its source.