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Magu, the Longevity Goddess, Extending Her Birthday Wishes

Design & Embroidering: Lu Shuxian1959 - 1979

Yangzhou Museum

Yangzhou Museum
Yangzhou, China

Housed in Yangzhou Museum of Arts and Crafts, this masterpiece of Lu Shuxian, the great master of Yangzhou Embroidery, took her 20 years, namely, from 1959 to 1979, to finish. It was very well-received at the 1983 Exhibition of Embroidery by Members of Jiangsu Province Arts and Crafts Association. As the only artwork by Master Lu that was kept in Yangzhou before she retired, it has been regarded as the masterpiece of Yangzhou Embroidery.
This piece was done based on the famous painting “Magu, the Longevity Goddess, Extending Her Birthday Wishes” by Huang Shen (1687-1772 AD), one of the painters dubbed as the “Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou”. This painting illustrates the scene of Magu, the Chinese mythological goddess of longevity, holding a pot of wine and extending her birthday wishes to the Heavenly Queen Mother of the West. Master Lu chose this subject and finished the embroidery piece while referring to the original painting in the museum to express her best wishes for the mother country.
Deeming this piece as her last one when started as she had known that she had cancer, Master Lu turned all her passionate lover for the mother country, her reluctance to leave the world and her insights on free-hand and antique embroidery into countless threads that combined into ink-like strokes on this wonderful piece.
The lady figure on the embroidery piece looks extremely vivid, shedding light on the ingenious techniques of the artist. In order to transfer onto the embroidery the graceful bearing of the figure and the fantastic atmosphere created by the painter Huang Shen who excelled in figure painting, especially painting of court ladies, Master Lu adopted various embroidery techniques, such as long and short stitches (changduan zhen, 长短套针 ) for the figure’s light and flowing garment, grid-making stitches (wang xiu, 网绣) for the shawl, knitting-like stitches (bian xiu, 编绣) for the silk belt from which the jade ornament hangs, and the combination of split stitches (jie zhen, 接针), thickening stitches (shi zhen, 施针), thread-twisting stitches (jiao zhen, 绞针) and random stitches for the composed expression and vividly-illustrated hair.
Awards:
Gold Award at the 2014 “Hundred Flower Cup” Chinese-designed Arts and Crafts Masterpiece Exposition
Selected for the shortlist of 2014 “Aileen” International Arts and Crafts Masterpiece Exposition

Details

  • Title: Magu, the Longevity Goddess, Extending Her Birthday Wishes
  • Creator: Design & Embroidering: Lu Shuxian
  • Date: 1959 - 1979
  • Type: Embroidery

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