Hunan embroidery — Xiang embroidery — is one of China's four major embroidery traditions, distinguished by its realistic depictions of animals, landscapes, and figures worked on silk with coloured threads. The technique involves mixing thread colours in the needle to create tonal gradations that give embroidered animals (tigers, fish, eagles) an almost three-dimensional quality that has made Xiang embroidery widely collected. The museum on the southern edge of the city demonstrates the craft and sells authenticated pieces ranging from small decorative panels to large commission works.
The museum's permanent collection includes historical pieces showing the development of the technique from the Han dynasty through the Republican period. The quality of work in the collection is genuinely extraordinary — photographs cannot convey how precisely the fur of a tiger or the scales of a carp can be reproduced in coloured silk thread. A working studio is attached where embroiderers can be observed. Prices for authenticated pieces are high; souvenir prints and reproductions are available at accessible prices. Entry costs around ¥30.