Finishing and Sending Off the Portrait
The nineteenth day of April was approaching, and the portrait steadily advancing. As it neared completion Her Majesty’s interest in it seemed to grow. She spent a great deal of time in my pavilion watching its progress, and expressed herself as much delighted with it. A few days before the nineteenth, I asked Her Majesty to allow Mrs. Conger to come and see it on that day. She immediately consented, and invitations were sent through the Foreign Office, not only to Mrs. Conger, but to the wives of the Ministers and First Secretaries of Legations to come to the Palace on the nineteenth day of April, for the purpose of “seeing the portrait of Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress Dowager, painted by the American artist.”
The ladies of the Legation, of course, responded to the invitation, and on the morning of the nineteenth the portrait was placed in the splendid frame. Her Majesty decided she would receive the ladies first in her Throne-room, after which they were to come to my studio to see the portrait. As I was still working until the “fateful hour,” I did not go up to the Throne-room but awaited the ladies in my own place. Her Majesty did not accompany the ladies when they came to see the portrait, but she sent the young Empress and Princesses to my pavilion to assist me in receiving and to lend a proper dignity to the occasion. The portrait, in a Chinese milieu, and seen in the light in which it was painted, made a better effect than it could in any other surroundings. The ladies were, of course, much interested in seeing this long-talked-of picture—the first ever painted of Her Majesty—and the novelty of the precedent, as well as the interest of a visit to the Palace, favorably predisposed them, and they expressed themselves as most interested in the work, finding it a good