• Conservation Science in Museum
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• v.30
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• pp.1-22
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• 2023

This study aims to document the conservation treatment of the fine-hemp official headgear housed by the National Museum of Korea, and to reconsider its existing name following the restoration of the original form of the damaged cultural heritage asset. The headgear consists of a single inner frame with a vertical line at the front, a single outer frame surrounding the inner frame, and a double-layered headband that spans the circumference of the wearer's head and joins the inner and the outer frames. This study applied a conservation treatment to the men's undyed hemp headgear of the Joseon Dynasty in order to remove contaminants and foreign substances on the surface and repair the partially deteriorated and damaged fabric, thereby restoring and stabilizing the original shape and preparing it for exhibitions. The hemp headgear was sewed both by hand and with a sewing machine. Although its overall composition and style are similar to the same type of official headgear from the Joseon Dynasty, the use of a sewing machine supports the assumption that it was produced in the early 1900s. This study identified similarities between the overall composition and shape of the fully-preserved hemp official headgear and those of the jangbogwan, a type of men's official headgear worn by Confucian scholars as part of their everyday attire, and compared it with the shape of jangbogwan seen in documentary records, illustrations, prior research, and portraits from the Joseon Dynasty, as well as with the characteristics of extant jangbowan artifacts, eventually concluding that it is appropriate to classify and name the headgear as a jangbogwan.