This first portrait represented the Empress Dowager sitting on one of her favorite Cantonese carved Thrones. The figure was life-size. In one hand she held a flower, and the other lay over a yellow cushion. The tip of one small embroidered shoe, with its jeweled, white kid sole resting on a dragon footstool, showed under the hem of her gown. The head was a three-quarters view, with the eyes looking at the observer. A jardinière, with her favorite orchid, stood behind the Throne at the right. It was painted in full light. The canvas was four by six feet in size; and there was thus no place for any of the emblems or insignia of Her Majesty’s rank, save that she was clothed in her official costume of Imperial yellow.
This was the conventional reality, and I had dreamed of painting Her Majesty in one of her Buddha-like poses, sitting erect upon an antique Throne of the Dynasty, with one beautifully rounded arm and exquisitely shaped hand resting on its high side, contrasting in their grace with its severe lines. I should have exaggerated her small stature by placing her upon the largest of these Dynastic Thrones. Her wonderfully magnetic personality alone should have dominated. At the left of the Throne, I should have placed one of those huge Palace braziers, its blue flames leaping into the air, their glow glinting here and there upon her jewels and the rich folds of her drapery; the whole enveloped in the soft azure smoke of incense, rising from splendid antique bronze censers. Across the base of the picture, under her feet, should have writhed and sprawled the rampant double dragon. The Eternal Feminine, with its eternal enigma shining from her inscrutable eyes, should have pierced, with almost cruel penetration, the mystery of her surroundings. Her face should have shone out of this dim interior, as her personality does above her real environment. I should have tried to show all the force and strength of her nature in that characteristic face, exaggerating every feature of it, rather than toning down one line.