Embroidery works are on display at Shen's Embroidery Museum in Nantong. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

Shen's Embroidery Museum, previously known as the Shen Shou Art Gallery, opened to the public in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province, on May 1.

The new museum covers an area of 1,200 square meters and consists of three exhibition halls and an outdoor gallery. On display are 280 artworks, including some portraits and royal paintings exhibited for the first time ever.

The museum, located at No 23 Haoyang South Road in Chongchuan district, was built at the former site of China's first embroidery school founded in 1914 by Zhang Jian, a famous modern local industrialist and renowned academic.

The school featured a "siheyuan" (Chinese traditional courtyard) consisting of three two-floor buildings that covered an area of about 2,000 square meters. Shen Shou (1874-1921), a Suzhou embroidery master, served as the school's headmaster and teacher.

After Shen's death, her elder sister Shen Li took over her job and ran the school for 17 years until the Japanese invaded Nantong in 1938.

In 1988, the site of the school was listed as a cultural site under the protection of the Nantong government. In addition, the Nantong emulating embroidery technique developed at the school was included in the second list of national-level intangible cultural heritage items in 2008.

An art gallery was built in 1992 to commemorate Shen Shou and to develop traditional embroidery techniques, but it closed for renovations more than a year ago.