(ECNS) -- The eastern Chinese city of Nanjing is to present a new version of Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa using Yunjin silk brocade, a craft dating back more than 1,500 years, during Milan Expo 2015.
The silk brocade is known as "Yunjin" in Chinese. Yun means clouds, and Jin brocade. The image includes a delicate and flossy piece of brocade that feels just like soft clouds.
The new Mona Lisa is 2.5 meters high and 1.8 meters wide. Six workers from the Nanjing Yunjin Research Institute Co., Ltd. are still working on the artwork with a specially-made, old-fashioned wooden weaving machine.
Researchers have also invented new weaving methods to vividly present the color transition effect from the original painting.
The institute has successfully copied some outstanding silk works in the past, including a 1.28-meter-long silk coat with a pair of long sleeves, weighing a mere 49 grams, and an emperor's dragon robe.
As an intangible cultural heritage of Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu province, Yunjin will play an important role at "Nanjing Week" during the Expo, displaying the city's ancient culture.
