FAR® Columnist
Handmade Chinese Silk Embroidery.
True or False?
by Lihua Zhao - 9/29/2006
China has always been famous for its silk. For millennia, the renowned “Silk Road” brought Chinese silk to Central Asia, Western Asia, Europe and Africa. The silk trade created exchanges between China, India, Greece and Rome and acted as a link between these four ancient civilizations.
As early as 200 B.C. Chinese silk started to make its way overseas to the four corners of the world. For several millennia the “Silk Road” was the link that created friendly ties between China and the people of the other countries in the world. In Ancient Greece and Rome, the entire northwestern area of China became known
as Seres, the land where silk comes from.
The city of Suhou is the center of the Chinese handmade embroidered silk visual art. From there the silk industry spreads west to other cities including Suzhou and it extends to Shanghai, Wuxi, etc. and now includes Beijing, Guangxi, Guangdong. Shenzhen, Zhejiang, Shanxi, Shandong, Hubei, Anhui and other places (see map).
Collecting
To this day there is a considerable worldwide interest in Chinese embroidered silk art.
Chinese handmade silk embroidery is highly collectible. There are many collectors in Germany, the rest of Europe, the USA, Japan, Africa and in other countries, usually the affluent art aficionados all over the world. The embroidered silk is truly representative of Chinese art.
Authentic antique silk embroidered visual art sells for anywhere between $35,000 and $125,000, and is an excellent investment as their prices continue to rise. Over the long term (hundreds of years) the value has increased by as much as 50 times. These pieces are on display in museums and exist in private collections and become available for sale in much the same way any antique art does: dealers, auctions and so on, with the usual problems of verifying authenticity and provenance.
You can also buy modern, hand embroidered silk of the type that is being produced today. This varies greatly in quality. At one extreme there is ordinary handmade silk embroidery which you can buy for as little as $100 for a piece. Then there is high quality, classical embroidered silk being produced at higher prices. These pieces tend to sell at auction and therefore the prices can go very high and be somewhat unpredictable.
There is another, entirely different type of embroidered silk that you can buy. This is machine made silk embroidery and almost all of the pieces made today are computer generated and fabricated. The design is produced on the computer screen and then the computer controls the sewing machine which does the actual embroidery. This is in wide use for clothes and accessories but is also used to make embroidered visual art. The machine made embroidered silk tends to date from the 1980s forward.
There is obviously nothing wrong with producing and selling machine made embroidered silk. It is much cheaper than its handmade counterpart so someone who cannot afford the handmade embroidery can buy the machine made equivalent if that’s what they want. Just like there is nothing wrong with selling fast food hamburgers.
But selling fast food hamburgers for $50 each claiming they are gourmet French cuisine is called rip-off. Similarly, making embroidered silk art on a machine and trying to pass it off as expensive handmade art is simply fraud.
Collectors are mostly interested in the handmade embroidery. Because of attempts to sell machine made or very poor quality handmade silk embroidery as the real thing, collectors have become wary of buying any embroidered silk. This is really quite unnecessary as the differences are very visible.
So, to summarize, we have several different levels of Chinese embroidered silk visual art:
• Antique (all handmade obviously)
• High quality, classical handmade
• Ordinary quality handmade
• Machine made
Problem
So now we know what we’re dealing with, let’s look at the problem for collectors.
The big question is: How do you tell the difference between handmade embroidered silk art and its machine made counterpart? How do I know that what I’m getting is handmade? How do I know if it’s good or not?
Obviously there has been enough misrepresentation for collectors to become wary. And they are wary.
Here is how you tell.
Handmade classical silk embroidery is alive. The high quality work looks lifelike. It’s been created with loving care by an individual artist. These people are masters of their trade.
They have incredible skill and their work is stunningly beautiful. But it looks alive. The machine made versions look stiff and unnatural. It’s quite easily distinguishable.
Handmade embroidery is done with pure silk thread. It has an exquisite, glossy feel to it. Real silk thread will break when used in a sewing machine. So the thread that is used in a machine is thicker and has an artificial fiber feel to it because it is a mix. It is not pure silk.
These are two of the telltale signs which give it away. The look and the feel. The thread that is used.
Next point, and this is a definitive way to tell if the work is handmade or machine made. Turn the
silk picture over and look at the back. If it’s handmade, the stitching on the back looks very loose and untidy. Because of this it is often covered up. If the picture has been done on a machine, the stitching on the back looks tight and neat. It doesn’t need to be covered up. Dead giveaway. So with the handmade pieces the back often has to be covered
to hide the stitching. You might have to check below the covering to make sure it really has that untidy and loose appearance and that someone hasn’t just put a covering over the neat, tight machine stitching to pretend it is really
handmade.
So it is not difficult to tell if the piece is handmade or machine made.
Antique or modern? High quality or low?
First of all, there is no antique, machine made silk embroidery. If it’s antique, it’s handmade. Of course it is possible to forge antique silk embroidery just as it is possible to forge 16th Century oil painting.
As far as authenticity, quality and value of the antique pieces is concerned, well, just as you would rely on experts to authenticate and appraise a Dutch painting from the 1600s, so you would rely on experts, of which there are many, to appraise and authenticate antique silk embroidered visual art. You can of course buy it just because you like it and find it beautiful, but if you want an accurate estimate of its value, you should rely on an expert.
As for the quality of the contemporary handmade work, you simply examine it and see for yourself. Is it well made? Or is the quality poor? Do you like the piece? Is it worth to you the price that is being asked? It’s no different than buying any contemporary art really, except perhaps that the name of the embroiderer is not so important as the name of the painter might be on a painting. The West is very name conscious. China does not have the same values. If the work is really well made and beautiful in design, it will fetch a higher price than if it is mediocre. It doesn’t matter WHO made it. The work stands on its own merits. Even if the piece was made by some well known embroiderer, it has to be high quality work to fetch a high price. You don’t get some Picasso scribbling some drawing, that could be done by any 8-year old child, on a napkin in a restaurant and having it sell for some ridiculous price because it is Picasso. The Chinese are more discriminating. They would look at the scribble on the napkin and point
out that it is badly executed and meaningless and pay you the price of the napkin, no matter who “drew” it and signed it.
This tends to bypass the authenticity aspect. If it’s good, you can see it. If it’s not, you don’t care who was supposed to
have made it.
That doesn’t mean that there are no famous names. There are. Take, for example, Yao Jianping, considered the “Queen” of contemporary silk embroidery. She was born in Suzhou, the heart of silk hand
embroidery in 1967. The most difficult skill in silk embroidery is portraiture and her portraits of Mao Zedong, the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Tung Chee-hwa and other foreign dignitaries are of the very finest.
Buying on the Net — Caveat Emptor
Like any other art, modern or old, you can find all kinds of Chinese silk embroidered visual art for sale on the Internet.
If you are buying on the Net there is a trick you have to watch out for. Quite frequently criminals will go into a shop that sells the genuine, handmade article and will take photos of the pieces. They will then use these photos to promote their products which are cheap handmade work.
You can tell this has happened by examining the photo. If the photos have flash reflections, reflections of the photographer or other signs of a hastily taken amateur photo, don’t buy from that company.
The photo will tell you all. The real producers of genuine, high quality handmade silk pictures will go to great lengths to take excellent quality photos. But they will not let some scam artist come in and take good photos of their work to use on their fake website. So be sure to take a good look at the photos before you buy. If they are badly taken, it may mean that they are not the work of that company. Avoid.
Facts & Figures
In 2004 the total sales of handmade silk embroidered visual art in the Suzhou region amounted to some 375 million CNY which translates to about US$47million.
In 2005 the figure was up over US $62million. These figures include sales within China as well as exports.
About 58% of these sales are exports.
In 2004, the town of Xuhe near Dongtai, is a center of machine made embroidery. In 2004 the total sales of machine embroidered silk were 650 million CNY (close to US$82 million). It is a very profitable industry.
Specific Companies
The Shanghai Silk Company’s produces 100% pure silk hand embroidery which it distributes wholesale to more than 50 retail outlets in Liaoning. Yunnan, Hainan, Hunan. Shanghai Silk also exports to the Republic of Ireland, Henderson, Nevada, in the USA, Melbourne, Australia as well as to Taiwan and other countries. You can visit this company’s website http://www.sx2005.com/htmls/1qygk/jxwh.htm. It’s in Chinese. So if you don’t speak Chinese you can at least find links to photos of some their wonderful work. Now if you want to buy a number of their manual embroidery products you should tell them that you have been recommended by Shanghai ShenXiu Embroidered Handcrafts Limited and the Fine Art Registry and you will get a nice surprise!
Here, on the other hand, is a company that sells obviously machine made silk embroidery: http://www.js-yp.com/coma/11/cpjs.asp?id=218695 The difference is pretty obvious.
This site is machine made embroidery. DongXin Silk Embroidery factory is located in the beautiful Jiangsu Wu River industrial center near Shanghai.
Summary
There is no question that classical Chinese silk embroidered visual art is a great investment. If you follow the guidelines given in this article you can avoid the worst pitfalls. You will still need expert advice if you want to get accurate appraisals and if you want to authenticate antique pieces.
It is quite easy to tell the difference between handmade and machine made silk embroidery. The back of the piece tells the tale. Neat or untidy?
Contemporary silk embroidery comes in all sorts of qualities. You can tell for yourself if it is well made, beautiful and high quality, or common and lower quality. You like it or you don’t. The prices of the ordinary work are very competitive. The really good stuff is often sold at auction and prices are much higher. Let your own perception be your guide.
On the Internet, steer clear of web sites where the photos are poor quality and don’t show the product clearly.
It’s not as difficult as some people seem to think. Mostly it’s probably fear of the unknown. We hope this article will help.
The History of Silk Additional Information
The production experience and technology was disseminated in four directions: to the East along the Korean Peninsula to Japan: to the North through Vietnam and over the Altai mountains into the heart of Russia; to the west through central Asia to west Asia, and on to Europe; through the southwest into India which then spreads over Southeast Asia and across the sea to Europe, Africa, Latin America. In this way, Chinese silk was a key ingredient in the development of world trade and contributed to the development of these various civilizations.
The production experience and technology was disseminated in four directions: to the East along the Korean Peninsula to Japan: to the North through Vietnam and over the Altai mountains into the heart of Russia; to the west through central Asia to west Asia, and on to Europe; through the southwest into India which then spreads over Southeast Asia and across the sea to Europe, Africa, Latin America. In this way, Chinese silk was a key ingredient in the development of world trade and contributed to the development of these various civilizations.
About the Author:
Lihua Zhao is a freelance writer living in Yangyuan. Born in Wangshi, a town famous for its clothing industry, Lihua graduated from the International Foreign Language University of Suzhou which is the center of the silk embroidery industry. She is writing about art in China for FAR.
— Lihua Zhao | September 29, 2006
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Fine Art News Feed
Both articles on silk and especially ivory were very useful and taught me a lot.
May I say, hên doû xiè!
André Pringos
January 26, 2007