Ren Benrong's embroidered protrait of Visvabhadra Bodhisattva.

Legends surround the art, some from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a collection of stories from the late Han periods.

It is said that Liu Bei, the warlord of late Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220) was about to face his nemesis Cao Cao, a powerful enemy from the north who intended to invade with a mighty army.

Liu ordered all the women in his city to make brightly embroidered battle flags that would line the city walls.

Awed by the display, Cao suspected an ambush and withdrew his forces. Thus was the embroidery needle proved mightier than the battle-axe.

Back to modern times, Ren, our Han embroidery master, was born and raised on a 400-year old "Embroidery Street" in Hankou, Wuhan, where thousands of embroidery specialists used to practice their art in about 40 or so shops run by merchant families. Their work was exported all over China then.

Ren comes from a family of expert designers on the street. While the actual embroidery was mostly done by women, the designs were only crafted by men, who traditionally passed on their knowledge only to sons, not daughters.

A qualified Han embroidery designer needed to master not only the complicated needlework techniques of Han embroidery, but also the design and tailoring styles of royal costumes from different dynasties, and they needed knowledge of folk culture, Taoism and painting skills.

Tapestries of history

Her mighty needle sets her apart