Hangzhou Embroidery

Hangzhou Embroidery originated from guige (boudoir) embroidery and was named after Lin’an (now Hangzhou), the capital city of the Southern Song Dynasty, where it flourished. It was also developed in Ningbo, Jinhua, and other surrounding areas, and then gradually evolved into folk embroidery. Hangzhou Embroidery is extremely elaborate and is a Jiangnan art decoration of high value.

Hangzhou is known as the "capital of silk". Silk fabrics excavated in Liangzhu, dating back to 4,700 years ago, reveal the long history of silk in Hangzhou. And the poem "Red-sleeved girls boast about the good weaving of Hangzhou silk, and people line up in front of the green flag to buy pear blossom wine" written by Bai Juyi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, reveals the high standard of silk in Hangzhou. The silk shops lining Qinghefang Street in the old days witnessed the prosperity of the silk economy, which led to the development of embroidery. Hangzhou has a long history of embroidery. According to records, the first curved blade embroidery scissors in the history of Chinese embroidery came from Hangzhou.

When Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty relocated the capital to Lin'an, he brought with him from the north a large number of skilled craftsmen, who combined the northern embroidery with the practical and decorative embroidery techniques of the South, resulting in a new variety that was more decorative and complex. In order to satisfy the extravagant needs of the imperial palace, there was a special "Wenxiu Courtyard" at the palace for embroidering various kinds of dresses used by the imperial family. In addition to the painters and embroiderers brought from the North, many painters and embroiderers were also found in Lin'an, and these skilled craftsmen specialized in embroidering royal costumes, ritual objects and decorations in the emperor’s carriage, which enabled Hangzhou Embroidery to enter and develop at the palace. As a result, Hangzhou Embroidery has a strong sense of extravagance in terms of patterns and stitches, and its quality is much higher than that of ordinary folk embroidery.