The photographs of the Empress Dowager Cixi taken by Xunling are more Western than Eastern in style. Freer and Sackler Galleries, SI Spin doctoring—the art of turning bad news into good and ...

Toward the end of the Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi arrogated all powers onto herself. This period, called the Guangxu Xuantong Reign, was China's darkest and most corrupt political period.

His wife, Empress Consort Ci'an — who was made co-regent together with Cixi after the emperor's death in 1861 but was for all practical purposes prevailed upon by the latter, who ruled in the ...