Celebrate the power of women.
Two hundred Chinese empresses, painted in gemstone pigments on silk by Xiang Li — Master Artist of Beijing's Forbidden City for 37 years.
Meet Xiang Li in person — Creative Hub Worcester, June 13, 2026 →
Gemstone mineral pigments on 100% silk
37
Master Artist at the Forbidden City
413
Dream of the Red Chamber, complete
200+
Painted in gemstones on silk
6
Of artistic practice
Empresses, dynasty by dynasty
From the Han to the Qing — two thousand years of women who shaped an empire, each portrait painted on silk.
202 BC – 220 AD · 23 portrait pages
9 – 23 AD · 2 portrait pages
220 – 280 · 8 portrait pages
266 – 420 · 9 portrait pages
420 – 589 · 22 portrait pages
581 – 618 · 2 portrait pages
618 – 907 · 21 portrait pages
907 – 979 · 6 portrait pages
960 – 1279 · 16 portrait pages
1271 – 1368 · 10 portrait pages
1368 – 1644 · 17 portrait pages
1636 – 1912 · 17 portrait pages
Chinese Empresses — twelve years of work, in 188 pages
The official volume by Xiang Li & Fei Wu: more than 200 uniquely reimagined empresses, their stories, and the silk paintings that brought them back — now stocked in the Worcester Art Museum gift shop.
$120 · full color · 188 pages
Commissions
A portrait that becomes an heirloom.
Xiang Li accepts a limited number of commissions — portraits, families, animals and landscapes in freehand or fine gongbi style, on watercolor paper, rice paper or 100% silk. Completed in 7–10 working days, shipped free in the US.
From $5,000
From the Forbidden City to New England
For 37 years, Xiang Li reproduced and restored ancient masterpieces inside Beijing's Palace Museum. In 1985 she became the first artist to complete all 413 characters of the classic novel Dream of the Red Chamber — a collection displayed for two decades and praised by Pu Jie, the Last Emperor's brother.
Today she paints in Massachusetts with her daughter Fei Wu, building the Chinese Empresses — and sharing traditional Chinese watercolor with everyone who will love it.
From the studio journal
From Studio Walls to Museum Shelves: Your Playbook for Publishing a Fine Art Coffee Table Book
June 8, 2026 · Tripti Gore Chandorkar
A New Goalpost for Xiang Li Art: What We Learned from Our Multi-Sensory Chinese Empress Experience at JMAC
May 24, 2026 · Fei Wu
Met Gala 2026 – Art, Textiles, and Storytelling on the Global Stage
May 10, 2026 · Tripti Gore Chandorkar