Li Eying
Lineage & School of Heritage
Li Eying began learning embroidery from her mother at the age of seven. Her skill was comprehensive and practiced, and she mastered the full range of traditional stitches; she later studied under the veteran artist Jin Jingfen of the Suzhou Embroidery Research Institute. She taught students in the many training courses run by the Suzhou Embroidery Research Institute, working tirelessly to train successors.
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
Female, of Han ethnicity, born in 1926, a native of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. She was a national representative bearer of Suzhou Embroidery, a first-batch national intangible cultural heritage project, and a Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts. Li Eying was richly endowed with a pioneering and innovative spirit. She was the first to use transparent nylon gauze as a ground fabric for double-sided embroidery, a technique especially suited to depicting goldfish; she also employed a gold-leaf ground in embroidering Mei Hua You Qin (Plum Blossom and a Reclusive Bird). Most of her representative works are double-sided embroideries, such as Heping Ge (Peace Dove), Cuiniao (Kingfisher), and Songling Heshou (Pine and Crane of Longevity), among others; of these, the Heping Ge (Peace Dove) motif was the first to be embroidered as a double-sided handkerchief, presented to foreign friends as a state gift.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
- Suzhou Embroidery Ⅶ-18
- Suzhou Embroidery Ⅶ-18
- Suzhou Embroidery Ⅶ-18
- Suzhou Embroidery Ⅶ-18
- Suzhou Embroidery Ⅶ-18
Profile
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。