Drinking Tiger

The original work was designed by the senior Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts, SHAO Chun-Lin, and embroidered by the embroidery artisan, WU Shu-Lan. The work was awarded the Hundred Flowers Award of Chinese Arts and Crafts and Gold Cup Award in 1982 and selected in the national treasure in 1985. Later, it was replicated by the Mater of Chinese Arts and Crafts ZHOU Jinxiu with her more outstanding embroidery artistry.

Lions and tigers are featured works unique to Xiang Embroidery. It is produced with the special technique, the Fluffy Stitch. The “Fluffy” refers to messy fur. It is an ingenious brainchild created by generations of Xiang Embroidery artisans. A distinctive stitch technique was employed to present fur-like stitches. It is as if were grown from the skin on one end and puffed on the other. Each thick thread is split into four threads, before split further into finer ones until around two hundred fine threads. As a result, the lions and tigers embroidered are fluffy in the coarse parts and exquisite in the delicate parts that one can hardly tell one fur from the other, presenting a breathtaking embroidery piece true to life.