EMPRESSES OF CHINA IN THE FORBIDDEN CITY Empresses of China’s Forbidden City is the first international exhibition ever to explore the role of empresses in shaping China’s last dynasty – the Qing (1644-1912).To get more news about last empress of china, you can visit shine news official website. To mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the China-US diplomatic relations, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M Sackler Gallery (Freer/Sackler), and the Palace Museum, Beijing, have organised this long-overdue, first-ever, international exhibition that peers over the walls of the Forbidden City and discover that the roles women of the Qing imperial court could and did influence politics, art, and religion. The exhibition contains nearly 200 spectacular works, including imperial portraits, jewellery, garments, Buddhist sculptures, and decorative works of art from the Forbidden City itself, together with those on loan from north American museums including the Peabody Essex and the Freer/Sackler. Women in the Qing Imperial Court Unlike modern ‘First Ladies’ in many countries, who are known to the public and who often have worthy interests and responsibilities, females of the Qing imperial court were only known as individuals within a tiny circle inside the Forbidden City. The stringent rules of ceremony, precedence, rank and tradition created a coterie of women behind the scenes, as it were, who were more like living automata than individuals. This was also the perceived case with empresses. As the Peabody Essex succinctly put it, ‘Their life experiences revolve around six core themes: imperial weddings, power and status, family roles, lifestyle, religion, and political influence’. There was an early exception, Wu Zetian (624-705) of the brief Zhou dynasty (684-705), who was not only an Empress Consort, but was also Empress Dowager and Empress Regnant, the sole officially recognised Empress Regnant of China for more than a millennium to come. Imperial Treasures on View This exhibition proves to be visually staggering, not just by the large number of imperial treasures on view, but by the unimaginable quality by which they were made; they are in themselves all works of art and of quality never seen outside the Forbidden City, especially so during the Qing Dynasty – imperial robes and headdresses, jewellery of all possible sorts and materials, gold seals, banners, paintings, portraits, fans of remarkable delicacy, shoes, photographs, fingernail covers, cosmetic boxes, furniture, vessels in gold and painted enamel and religious images. To lend the human perspective to this long-overdue exhibition, much has been devoted to three remarkable Qing-dynasty women: Empress Xiaoxian (1712-1748); Empress Dowager Chongqing (1693-1777); and Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908). Empress Dowager Xiaoxian – Qianlong’s First Empress Empress Dowager Xiaoxian was Qianlong’s first empress. She was born into the princely Manchu Fuca clan, which had supplied officials and ministers since the beginning of the Qing dynasty. In 1727, Lady Fuca, as she was first known, married Hongli, aka Prince Bao, the fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor (r 1722-1735), who, on the death of his father in 1735, became the Qianlong emperor (r 1735-1796). Lady Fuca was born in 1712 and Qianlong was born 1711 and they had known each other since childhood. Two years later in 1737, as the emperor’s primary consort, she was installed as empress. She has been described as virtuous and respected and, as friends with Qianlong since childhood, she was particularly devoted to him and, as an empress, was demure as well as frugal, ofttimes wearing wildflowers in her hair instead of jewellery. She was loyal to Confucian ideals, as was Qianlong, and as such was in charge of the women’s quarters and the imperial consorts during rites performed by the court. The rites she supervised herself were the rites of sericulture, as one of the empresses of China. They had been performed for millennia and there are paintings that depict her holding and feeding silkworms. She had urged the construction of an altar for sericulture rites and in 1744 she was the first Qing empress to officiate at these. Xiaoxian is notable as an empress because of the mutual feelings of affection and friendship she shared with the emperor until her death in 1748 at the age of thirty-six and because of the respect and devotion she received from the entire court.