Value vs. Price
As one of the founders of this art, the Chinese brought embroidered art to a new level in the last century. Embroidery has become highly complex and exquisite now. It has become more elegant and covers a wider range. From paintings by masters, to patterns by designers, to landscapes, flowers and birds, dragons and phoenix, tigers and animals, portraits, oil paintings, tiles and ancient coins, it seemed all could be the subject of embroidery.
Chinese embroidery has many esoteric stitching traditions. Executed in fine close stitches, it looks smooth, neat and glossy. The stitches are hardly visible. The complicated process involves various embroidery techniques, such tracing, color matching and cross-stitching. Sometimes a thickness of ordinary silk thread has to be split into 10 to 64 or more strands in order to show more details. Because embroidery is 100% handmade, some of the pieces were so finely stitched that they took several people and several years to complete. These pieces were very expensive.
In general, an experienced embroiderer has to practice for over 10 years to master all the techniques. The clever use of thicker or thinner, richer or lighter colors of silk threads and a rich variety of stitches guarantee it superb quality. The quality of stitching is what makes the work more valuable. Larger embroideries are more expensive than smaller ones usually with more time and work to complete it in general. But size is not the only measure for the prices because if the bigger pieces are not fully embroidered, the patterns or the background from original paintings or designs were not completely finished well, then their prices are cheaper. Some embroidery, sold by other retailers, is made by machine, even some of the silk embroidered paintings, so that kind of embroidery should be sold at much lower prices.
Embroidery is a brilliant pearl in Chinese art. From the magnificent Dragon Robe worn by emperors to the popular embroidery seen in today's fashions, embroidery adds so much pleasure to our life and our culture.
