Imperial Exposures

"The character and power of the Empress were palpable, and though at the time we met her she was over seventy, one felt her charm. She by no means looked her age; her small, brilliant, black eyes were alert and piercing; they and her rather cruel, thin mouth, turned up at one corner, drooping a little at the other, made her face vivid and memorable."



"The next morning two court officials came to the Legation and presented me with a little black dog sent by the Empress, and in the afternoon her photograph arrived. It is an excellent photograph, really like the "old Buddha." I thought so at the time when her face was fresh in my mind, and to look at it now, recalls vividly that day at the summer palace. A troop of cavalry clattered down the street to the Legation, sur­rounding an imperial yellow chair in which, by itself, was the photograph. It was in an ordinary occidental gilt frame, but the box that held it was lined and wrapped in imperial yellow brocade and the two offi­cials were of much higher rank, than those who brought the Pekinese."

—Excerpts from Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Crowded Hours (New York and London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933)

According to her 1933 autobiography, Alice’s audience with the Empress Dowager was relatively uneventful. The presentation of Cixi’s photograph the following day seemed to make more of an impression.  This dramatic presentation suggests that, rather than a mere personal memento, the photograph was intended as an extension of Cixi’s imperial presence. The Qing court was attempting to navigate between traditional standards of imperial concealment, and new expecations of a publicly accessible sovereign intimately identified with her subjects.  The delivery of the Cixi portrait in a covered palanquin suggests that in spite of the obligation of diplomatic gifting, the court was not prepared to expose the imperial visage to public gaze.  Cixi's priority was to maintain at all costs, the appearance of legitimacy - a unique challenge for a woman that many in China and abroad regarded as a usurping concubine. 

The portrait shows Cixi in a strictly frontal pose, corresponding to traditional Qing painted portraits.  The photographer has dramatically lightened and smoothed her features on the negative, making her look decades younger than her near 70 years.



Cixi's gift to the daughter of the American president may have been to sway Roosevelt to support relinquishing China's reparations following the Boxer Rebellion.  The US was considered one of the more sympathetic countries to China's situation, and the most likely member of the Eight-Nation Alliance to forgive the heavy reparations which were damaging China's economy. Interestingly, indemnity reductions called for by Roosevelt were passed by Congress in 1908, the same year as Cixi’s death. 

"The Emperor and his son, who became the last Emperor, led a furtive existence in their palace alongside our Legation. A few days after we arrived, we lunched with them there in the European part of the building. We were received in an upstairs room, and then the squat Emperor did not give me his arm, but took mine, and together we went in a hurried wobble down a very narrow staircase to an unnoteworthy, smallish dining room. We had Korean food, served in Korean dishes and bowls ornamented with the imperial crest. Those I used were afterwards presented to me, and at a farewell audience, the Emperor and Crown Prince each gave me his photograph. They were two rather pathetic, stolid figures with very little imperial existence ahead of them."

—Excerpt from Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Crowded Hours (New York and London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933) 

Earlier in the tour, while Alice was being lavishly feted in Tokyo, Secretary of War William Howard Taft was conducting private discussions with Japan's Prime Minister Katsura, essentially giving Japan free reign over Korea in exchange for Japan's assurances of non-interference in America's activities in Hawaii and the Philippines.  Within two months of Alice's visit to Seoul, the Japanese Government issued the 1905 Protectorate Treaty, effectively eliminating Korea's ability to conduct its own diplomatic policies.  The slide toward domination continued until Korea was formally annexed into the Japanese Empire in 1910, and Emperor Gojong deposed.  

These two portraits may be the last desperate attempt by the Korean government to project an image of entitled hereditary rulership - replete with a suitable heir - to the American President, who they saw as the sole defender of an independent Korea in the face of increasing Japanese intimidation and hegemony.  Unfortunately by this time, the Americans had already determined Korea's fate within the context of its own Pacific ambitions.  Alice's 1933 recollection does not hide her own indifference to the Emperor's efforts at personal diplomacy - perhaps in hindsight it is her attempt to justify America's abandonment of its long-stated diplomatic commitments.