author
Katharine A. (Katharine Augusta) Carl
1865–1938
Known for painting royalty and public figures on three continents, this American artist also left behind a vivid firsthand account of life at the Qing court. Her best-known book grew out of the months she spent in China painting Empress Dowager Cixi.
1 Audiobook
With the Empress Dowager of China
by Katharine A. (Katharine Augusta) Carl
About the author
Born in New Orleans in 1865, Katharine Augusta Carl was an American portrait painter and writer whose career took her far beyond the United States. She studied art in Paris and became known for painting prominent and royal sitters in America, Europe, and Asia.
Her most famous commission came in 1903, when she spent many months in China painting Empress Dowager Cixi for the St. Louis Exposition. That unusual experience made her one of the few Western artists to work so closely within the Qing court, and it later inspired her book With the Empress Dowager of China.
Carl died in 1938, but her work still draws interest for the way it connects art, travel, and a remarkable moment of contact between cultures. For readers, she is especially memorable as an observant storyteller who turned an artist's commission into a lively historical memoir.