Embroidery Series of Zhu Da’s Paintings Cat

The embroiderer practiced innovation and flexible combination of techniques in this series of free-hand embroidery pieces, which are based on the paintings of the famous Ming-and-Qing painter Zhu Da (1626-ca. 1705). As a painter with strong personality who excelled especially in flower and bird painting, in which the painter “never pursued completeness but always end up with completeness based on his unrestrained brushwork and flooding emotions”.

The embroiderer adopted hairy stitches (shimao, 施毛针) and lined stitches (pai zhen, 排针) to imitate the rendering of ink on rice paper, which was employed by the painter to depict the texture of fur and hair, leading to the illustration of a lovely cat with charming naivety.