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Empress Dowager Cixi; Katharine A. Carl (1865–1938); Oil on canvas with camphor wood frame, 1903; Transfer from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, S2011.16 Arguably the most powerful empress in ...

WASHINGTON — Cixi, the Grand Empress Dowager, led China for more than half a century until her death in 1908. In 1903, she opened up to one Western influence: photography. The Smithsonian’s Arthur M.

Her original first name was considered too inconsequential to enter in the court registry, yet she became the most powerful woman in 19th-century China. Born in 1835 to a prominent Manchu family, Cixi ...