Su Embroidery is short for Suzhou Embroidery, topping the four renowned Chinese embroidery types including Su (Suzhou), Yue (Guangdong), Shu (Sichuan) and Xiang (Hunan).

Su Embroidery originated from the area around Wuxian County of Suzhou, situated on the lower reaches of Yangtze River in the south of Jiangsu Province. With green mountains, clear waters and mild climate, it is a place producing high quality silk. Therefore the local women are good at the traditional craft of embroidery.

The making of Su Embroidery was recorded early in the Three Kingdom Period (220-280 A.D.). Pieces of Su Embroidery products used for wrapping scriptures had been unearthed from the Ruiguang Pagoda and the Huqiu Pagoda of Suzhou, built in the Five Dynasties Period and the Northern Song Dynasty. These are the earliest Su Embroidery discovered by now. The South of the Yangtze River had become the center of silk weaving industry by the time of the Ming Dynasty. The excellent recreation works copied from paintings by the embroidery artists were lively with the incisive and vivid lingering charm of the lines and colors inherited from the painting, reputed as "paintings drawn by needles" and "marvelous creation excelling nature". The art of embroidery has its own artistic style in needle work, color and design, comparable to the art of painting and calligraphy.

Qing Dynasty was the prime time of Su Embroidery, with master embroiderers coming up one after another. A large number of embroideries used by the royal household almost all came from these Su Embroidery masters. Thus, Suzhou became known far and wide as "the market of embroidery".

In the long history of its development, Su Embroidery has gradually acquired its unique art style of pretty design, harmonious color, sprightly lines, lively needlework and fine workmanship. The embroidery skill is featured with flatness, tidiness, harmony, colorfulness, smoothness and evenness. "Flatness" refers to the flat surface of the embroidery; "tidiness" refers to the neat edge of the patterns; "thinness" refers to the fine thread which can be split into its one tenth, one twentieth and even one thirtieth; "thickness" refers to the close arrangement of the lines, leaving no sign of the stitches; "harmony", means the coordination of colors; and "colorfullness" represents the splendid colors. There are over one thousand varieties of thread colors, and each color is further classified into more than ten types from lightness to darkness. Sometimes a product will use as many as one or two hundred colors. "Smoothness" shows that the trace of the threads moves freely and smoothly, while "evenness" means that the lines are fairly consistent, whether loose or dense. Su Embroidery works fall into three categories of piece works, stage costumes and wall hangings, having both decorative function and practical use. Among them, the most exquisite are works of double-sided embroidery articles and screen walls.

Su Embroidery was listed among the first batch of national intangible cultural heritages in 2006. Su Embroidery artists have been making unremitting efforts to carry forward, protect and develop Su Embroidery, inputting modern elements into it by incorporating new techniques. With the ability to recreate pictures of all genres and styles in the western and eastern paintings and photography, Su Embroidery is now endowed with more fashion and modernity.