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The Empress Dowager Cixi had her own palace within the Forbidden City. For almost half a century, from 1861 to 1908, she was the effective ruler of the Middle Kingdom, the name for her land.
As her royal position changed and her responsibilities increased, she changed palaces and bedrooms.
On her 50th birthday, Cixi moved into the Palace of Accumulated Excellence, which was lavishly redecorated for the occasion. The outer eaves were charmingly painted with birds, flowers, and landscape scenes. Plate glass, which only recently had been introduced to China from the West, replaced the traditional windows made of wooden lattice pasted over with paper. Dark, elaborately carved, wooden partitions still divide the interior space into a row of connecting rooms. A private sitting room adjoins her bedroom.
A Special Place
Cixi's bedroom clearly reflected her lifestyle and personal taste in furniture and decoration. The bed is built into an alcove framed by wooden posts supporting a huge frieze carved with good-luck designs for long life, peace, and prosperity. The bed is actually a heated brick platform, faced with wood. Cixi slept between silk sheets on an imperial yellow silk brocade mattress. She kept warm with silk quilts. Her neck rested comfortably on a hard pillow. Bags of scent hung between layers of curtains exquisitely embroidered with flowers and grapes. When the curtains were closed, she was in a warm, fragrant, private world — a silken room within a room. During the day, the curtains were opened, bedding folded against the back, and a small table placed on the mattress so that the bed became a convenient seat.
Cixi awakened before dawn and had her hair done. Then maids set a basin of warm water on a wooden stand, and she washed her face with perfumed soap and applied a mixture of honey and flower petals, followed by fragrant pink powder. This painting and powdering of her face was all in preparation for the morning audience with her officials, who would carry out her commands.
The washbasin stand is richly ornamented with mother-of-pearl dragons, honored by the Chinese as bringers of rain and fertility. Costly jade dragon heads on the top rail hold towels in place. A panel inlaid with precious stones shows foreigners bringing a dancing lion, coral, and other valuable gifts to the Empress Dowager.
Palace of Accumulated Excellence Today
Elephants, Dragons, and More
Gifts to the Empress Dowager were lavish, such as real elephants or small Chinese models of them. On the table in the bedroom, there is a superbly crafted pair of enamel elephants carrying vases with branches of coral symbolizing universal peace. The Empress Dowager liked to display a few European objects as well. Among them was the gilt mirror stand in the center of the table. Nearby stands her water pipe. The table is decorated with five-clawed dragons, the symbol of the emperor. The picture above depicts a phoenix, the symbol of the empress. The room is lit by candles in large hanging lanterns, embellished with tassels and pendants.
Still, regardless of the value of the furnishings and the ornateness of the gifts, there was something forbidding about the Forbidden City. Finding her quarters confining and gloomy, the Empress Dowager preferred to live in the Summer Palace.
By Sarah Handler
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