Hubert Vos, H. I. M., the Empress Dowager of China, Cixi (1835-1908), 1905-6

Cambridge, MA, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop, 1943.162: https://hvrd.art/o/311922

There is a narrative about China that was long popular in the West. In spite of its many dazzling cultural and technological achievements, China had become inward-looking, staid, and repressive at the dawn of the industrial age. Western delegations, begging trade concessions, were given very short shrift at the Qing Dynasty court. Nothing the West could supply was of any interest to the emperor and his mandarins. The Qing, as an invader dynasty, may well have been more paranoid about outside contacts than their predecessors, but as history would show, they had good reason.

Soon the West, led by Britain, had its revenge for that snubbing, and a great civilization began to fall apart. We shall follow that tragic century - from the Opium Wars to the Boxer Rebellion, and the revolution of 1911.

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