Nantong colored satin embroidery. [Photo provided to en.nantong.gov.cn]

Colored satin embroidery was created by Nantong artists in the 1970s based on traditional embroidery.

Colored satin embroidery features traditional stitches including stippling and craft techniques such as dyeing, lining, pinning, and reeling, according to Huang Peizhong, master of Chinese arts and crafts.

Although the stippling and other stitches have existed in China since ancient times, they were used just for decoration. Nantong's colored satin embroidery has helped these stitches take the center stage in modern decorative arts.

Nantong colored satin embroidery. [Photo provided to en.nantong.gov.cn]

In 1983, guided by painter Zhang Ding, the Nantong Institute of Arts and Crafts made a large colored satin embroidery wall painting called the Great Wall, which was recorded in the history of modern Chinese wall painting, for the Great Wall Hotel Beijing.

Since then, multiple fine colored satin embroidery works have been made by the Nantong institute. The institute has embroidered wall paintings for Beijing Jianguo Hotel, Beijing Huaxia Bank, Lhasa in Tibet autonomous region, and the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Wang Jianhua is the only inheritor of Nantong colored satin embroidery, a provincial intangible cultural heritage item and her work Mirage, a double-sided screen, has been added to the Complete Collection of Modern Chinese Art.