Cixi: the empress dowager behind the curtain who lost China or tried to save it
In 1903, Empress Dowager Cixi sat in front of a camera in her palace. She wore precious silks, pearls and a huge Manchu headdress; apples, bronze vessels and signs of longevity were carefully placed around her. The image was meant to show more than splendor. After war, foreign occupation and a damaged reputation, China's most powerful woman wanted to determine how the world saw her. Behind that staged portrait lay an extraordinary life: from a teenager without a political position of her own to the woman who ruled the Qing dynasty behind a curtain for almost half a century.
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