They have a particular aversion to blond hair. They did not tell me so, as I have blond hair; but on the stage all the demons are represented with blond hair, and the more blond it is, the more wicked the demon. One day, one of the Ladies suggested to me that there were some very fine vegetable hair dyes for turning the hair black without injuring it; in fact, the growth was increased thereby. She said if I used this, my hair “might in time become black; at least, it would grow much darker.”
XX
I Begin a Second Portrait of Her Majesty—The Palace Painters
I had several days of good work on the portrait after the garden party, when Her Majesty decided it was sufficiently advanced for the characters, giving her name and titles, to be placed across the top of the canvas. As she has sixteen appellations, represented by sixteen characters, and as they were all to be placed upon the picture, together with her two seals, official and personal, it required some maneuvering to get them into the space required. This lettering was looked upon as a very important detail; there were numbers of models of the characters made before the proper size and style was arrived at. The seals, about three inches long, had to be placed at either end of the sixteen characters, and there was a great deal of deliberation as to the color in which the characters were to be painted. Red was finally decided upon. The two seals were to be painted, one in red characters on a white ground, and the other in white characters on a red ground. As I had not known these appellations were to be placed across the top of the canvas when I began the portrait, I had not allowed for them, and putting them on took away from the space above the head and detracted from the general effect. This was another discouragement. I left the discussion of the lettering to Her Majesty and the writers, and I decided to give the canvas over entirely to the latter for a few days, in order that they might place the characters thereon, and that Her Majesty might have time to decide upon their color at her leisure.
Her Majesty had told me, a few days before, she wished me to paint a “number of portraits” of her, so I decided to begin another now, and I hoped to be able, as this was not to be an official portrait, to have a little more liberty in painting it. Her Majesty decided that it should be painted in her ordinary dress and without the Manchu coiffure, which she only wears at her Audiences, as it is very heavy and very tiring to her head. The day I began the portrait she had on a gown of soft, embroidered blue. Her hair, in a coil at the top of her head, was beautifully dressed, with the jasmine flowers so quaintly arranged, a realistic butterfly poised above them; her jewels so discreet and picturesque, I asked her to pose and let me paint her as she was then. Her coiffure, without the Manchu headdress, is much more becoming to her than with the huge, winglike construction which made her look top-heavy; for when she wore it, being in official costume, she was obliged to wear a great profusion of jewels and ornaments. In this portrait she was seated upon her Throne, but not in a traditional attitude, and I began it full of hope; for, at least, I had more choice as to the surroundings and accessories, which were not obliged to be “according to tradition.” As it was only to be seen by her intimates, I asked her to let me paint her two favorite dogs lying beside her footstool, the blond Shadza and dusky Hailo. Her Majesty gladly consented, and Hailo was ordered to be decorated in his “gala costume.” This consisted of two huge chrysanthemums tied in his hair over his ears. Shadza, the Pekingese pug, resented any such accoutrement and was painted in his natural state. She took the liveliest interest in the painting of the dogs’ portraits, and seemed to think it much more wonderful to paint these little animals, so that they were recognizable, than to make a likeness of herself. I was obliged, of course, to do them very quickly. She sat behind me all the time I was painting them, and the rapidity with which they grew much astonished her.
I discovered about this time I was not the only painter in the Palace. Her Majesty has a corps of painters always there. These painters decorate the thousands of lanterns used in the Palace ceremonies and processions. They paint the scenery for the spectacular plays at the Theater, and the flowers used for the decorations of the screen-like walls I have already alluded to. Some are very clever flower painters, and one even paints portraits, but they have never seen the Empress Dowager except from afar! Though Mandarins of the Third rank, the painters were obliged to withdraw from the court where they worked when Her Majesty and suite passed by. It was amusing to see these dignified, handsomely gowned officials being hurried out of the court on Her Majesty’s approach by the eunuchs who precede her. Their paintings were submitted to her by one of the eunuchs, by whom she sent her instructions to them.
I saw these painters first, at the time of the chrysanthemums. There were some new varieties in one of Her Majesty’s courts that she wished painted. One day, on going into this court, I saw a group of bebuttoned officials studying the flowers. They gravely inclined their heads with
