With the Empress Dowager of China — Story, Setting & Ideas

ablished tradition for an Imperial portrait to be painted, there was no precedent to follow and all arrangements were of the vaguest kind; and when I went into the Palace for my first Audience, I did not know whether I would have one sitting or ten, and no one else seemed to have any more definite information. All was uncertainty. Everything depended upon Her Majesty’s inclination, and future developments must be awaited. I felt that I was really going into the Palace on trial and that my reception and the work depended upon the fantasy and whims of a great Personage from whom, according to current reports, I had but little to expect. On the day of my first Audience, I was told at the Foreign Office that Her Majesty was to give me but one sitting, hence it was not in a very tranquil state of mind that I went up to be presented to the Great Empress Dowager, Tze-Shi! But all this was changed when I saw her. She received me kindly, was very gracious. A Palace was set aside for me, and every facility afforded me for my work: during my sojourn at the Chinese Court I painted not only the portrait for the Exposition at St. Louis, but three others of Her Majesty.

Unique as my experiences at the different Palaces of Their Celestial Majesties were, I concluded, after I had lived at Court for a few months, I would never make these experiences public. The Empress Dowager received me in so friendly a manner, I met with such consideration at her hands and such unfailing courtesy from all with whom I came in contact, I felt I should requite this kindness by an equal consideration, and that it was my duty to respect Chinese prejudices and conform to their ideas of “Propriety” by refraining from any relation of my charming experiences.

After I returned to America, I was constantly seeing in newspapers (and hearing of) statements ascribed to me which I never made. Her Majesty was represented as having stood over me in threatening attitudes, forcing me to represent her as a young and beautiful woman! It was reported that she refused to give me any compensation for the portraits, and a number of other statements, equally false, were daily appearing in the papers. The London “Times,” in speaking of the Empress Dowager, said: “Some one has said ‘she has the soul of a tiger in the body of a woman,’ and Miss Carl found the old lady shrewd and tempestuous.” The latter statement, which I never made, seemed to me enough to have on my shoulders, but the article was copied in American papers and I was put down as the author of the first, as well as of the second statement. The power of the Press has become such that it cannot be ignored. It is of no avail to say nothing in such a case as mine; when you do this, words are put into your mouth and sentiments ascribed to you at the will of the newsmongers. If a correction be made, it never seems to get the same circulation or publicity as the first statement. These erroneous statements continue to appear, and I have finally decided that, in justice to my August Patroness as well as to my humbler self, it is incumbent upon me to correct them, and it seems to me the only proper way to do so is to write a full and true relation of my life at the Palace and my experiences while painting the portraits of Her Majesty the Empress Dowager.

I know I publish this account at the risk of offending the sensibilities of my Chinese friends, for many of them will never know what called it forth. I know that by so doing I may change any favorable opinion they may have formed as to my good-breeding and discretion. I was on sufficiently intimate terms with Her Majesty and the Ladies of the Court to know that this account will be looked upon by them as an “indiscretion,” to say the least of it.