The history of Han Embroidery dates back to the Chu Kingdom in the Warring States (BC 475-BC 221). During the early years of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the handicraft spread in Hubei Province from Jingzhou and Shashi cities to Wuhan City. Accents of lines, lattices and circles are made use of in designs of Han Embroidery that take as major patterns auspicious traditional Chinese folk paintings, such as Prosperity Brought by the Dragon and the Phoenix, Duo Dragons Playing a Pearl, and A Surplus Year After Year. The craft is bold in transforming portraits, flowers, grass, birds, animals, fish and other creatures. Han Embroidery is lustrous, vivid in color, and strongly representative of a particular place and a special art in China.

Forming what has come to be known as "Embroidery Street," near the Wanshou Palace in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, are 32 embroidery shops. In days past, renowned Beijing Opera masters such as Cheng Yanqiu and Yuan Shihai ordered their embroidered stage costumes from the predecessors of these workshops. In 1910, Han Embroidery, as crafted by well-known craftsmen and depicting Chinese characters and paintings, won a first prize at the Nanyang Exposition. Again in 1915, at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Han Embroidery won a gold medal. Han Embroidery has since become known throughout the nation and collected around the world by lovers of the traditional art.