With the Empress Dowager of China

Katharine A. Carl
Illustrated by the Author and with Photographs
New York The Century Co. 1907
Copyright, 1905, by The Century Co.
Published November, 1905.
PORTRAIT OF THE EMPRESS DOWAGER
This is the portrait which was exhibited at the St. Louis Exposition, is now owned by the United States Government, and is in the National Museum at Washington
TO SIR ROBERT HART
To whose helpful encouragement I owe so much, I affectionately dedicate this account of my experiences at the Court of the country he has so long and faithfully served.
Katharine A. Carl.
New York, May , 1905.
In April, 1903, while I was visiting in Shanghai, I received a letter from Mrs. Conger, wife of the Minister of the United States to Peking, in which she said there was a question of Her Majesty the Empress Dowager’s having her portrait painted, and asking me if such a thing should be arranged would I be willing to come to Peking and undertake it. Mrs. Conger hoped, if the project should materialize, that Her Majesty might later consent to send the portrait to the Exposition at St. Louis. She thought such a portrait would be of great interest to the American people and might prove an attractive feature to the Exposition, in which she and Mr. Conger were, naturally, much interested. She also felt, as she had had an opportunity of seeing a good deal of the Empress Dowager, that if the world could see a true likeness of her, it might modify the generally accepted idea which prevailed as to Her Majesty’s character.