How to rule 400,000,000 subjects

[Narcissa]

Evidently you need a powerful headdress and some really remarkable shoes, all dripping with pearls.

From NPR article on Empress Dowager Cixi, once the most powerful woman in Asia.
Link: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/19/143796431/powerful-portraits-capture-chinas-empress-dowager?sc=fb&cc=fp

http://media.npr.org/assets/artslife/arts/2011/12/cixishoes_custom.jpg
http://media.npr.org/assets/artslife/arts/2011/12/cixihair_custom.jpg

[mausketeer]

neato! thanks narcissa! holy cow! how big do you reckon that pearl on her headdress is? 15mm or so? it must be a "known" pearl, huh?

- jodie -

[Kevin Canning]

whoa - those shoes weren't built for hiking were they!

[Narcissa]

whoa - those shoes weren't built for hiking were they!

Lol, though definitely power shoes, not for power-walking.

[GemGeek]

Wowee Narcissa! :)

[Adeline Leigh]

Lol! Cixi taihou probably couldn't do a lot of walking anyway given her miniature bound feet (they appear as small as that girl's in the picture) and all those sedan-bearers at her disposal.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Presenting-Chinas-Last-Empress-Dowager.html?onsite_source=relatedarticles&onsite_medium=internallink&onsite_campaign=SmithMag&onsite_content=Presenting China's Last Empress Dowager

With regard to that pearl in her headress, it seems both that and the pearl placed on her corpse went missing. Stuff of urban legend indeed.

Wikipedia:
"In July 1928, Empress Dowager Cixi's tomb was occupied by warlord and Kuomintang general Sun Dianying and his army who methodically stripped the complex of its precious ornaments, then dynamited the entrance to the burial chamber, opened Empress Dowager Cixi's coffin, threw her corpse (said to have been found intact) on the floor, and stole all the jewels contained in the coffin, as well as the massive pearl that had been placed in Empress Dowager Cixi's mouth to protect her corpse from decomposing (in accordance with Chinese tradition). Urban legend states that the large pearl on Empress Dowager Cixi's crown was offered by Sun Dianying to Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek and ended up as an ornament on the gala shoes of Chiang's wife, Soong May-ling, but this is unconfirmed."

[pbazar]

It is a story I been telling for a long time there are two great books Empress Orchid and The Last Empress

by Anchee Min

you see I own her Pearl
http://www.imperialpearl.com/Imperial/Treasures/Largest-natural-Pearl.asp

[Caitlin]

I am so glad this story is now up on Pearl-Guide.com!!! Do you have more photos of it?

[Adeline Leigh]

A surreptitious end to the urban legend! How wonderful to sight it in pictures. Looks like the wiki info needs to be edited :)

[Amanda]

She doesn't look like a woman to mess with.