Hubert Vos was born in Maastricht, Holland February 17, 1855 and died in 1935. He is considered a genre, portrait and still life painter from the American school. Vos received his formal art education at the l'Academie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and in Paris at Ecole des Beaux-Arts under orientalist Fernand-Anne-Priestre Cormon (1854-1924). Cormon would become the greatest influence on Hubert Vos' career as a painter in the orientalist style.

Vos was awarded gold medals at the Salons of Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Rome and Dresden. In 1892, he was appointed Holland's deputy commissioner of the Dutch exhibits at the Chicago World's Fair, held to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the voyages of Columbus. He grew to like the United States, a 'Land of Hope and Opportunity, and embraced it as his adopted country.

Hubert Vos was the first westerner invited to paint the portraits of China's Empress Dowager, Cixi (1835-1908). Unlike his first trip to China, the Chinese government sponsored Vos's second trip. He had been commissioned to paint portraits of the ministers of the Foreign Office. Upon his arrival in Beijing in June 1905' Vos was informed that it wasn't the mandarins whom he would paint, but the empress-dowager herself, Cixi. He was given ten days to get ready for the empress-dowager's first appointed sitting on June 20th. Nothing, however, quite prepared him for his first encounter with the imperial mystique: the palace grounds, the architecture and of course, Cixi herself.

Everything about Cixi, now an old woman of seventy years, seemed delicate and elegant. He set to work fast, scrambling to get a sketch of Cixi on a small canvas before the setting was over. He would then use the sketch when he started painting on the large canvas in his temporary studio on the top floor of the Beijing hotel.

The sitting on the following day lasted only forty-five minutes, Cixi looked at the unfinished portrait. Through an interpreter she told Vos to use no shadows under or above the eyes or on the nose and to paint the eyes wide open, the mouth full and up, not drooping and the eyebrows straight.

Vos had little choice but to comply. Working through the rest of the day in his hotel studio, he started a new sketch of Cixi according to her instructions: without the use of shadows. The result was a visage of a thirty-year old woman, calm and dignified.

Cixi was pleased with the new sketch on the third day, suggesting nevertheless that the eyes 'b more up, more slanting'. Vos continued to work on the portrait until August 18th, 'The younger Cixi' measured 92 x 54 and was handed over to the court officials before Vos returned to the United Stated.

Vos would complete his original sketch of Cixi. The portrait would show the aging Empress Dowager as he remembered her. The realistic Cixi, with the dimensions of 52 x 36 in, was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1906. Both portraits exist today. Together they tell the story of a brief encounter between personalities and cultures.

Literature:
No Shadows. (Hubert Vos's portraits of China's Empress Dowager, Cixi), Luke S.K Kwong, Professor of History, University of Lethbridge, Canada.

Listed:
E. Benezit, vol. 10
Who was Who in American Art, Falk
American Art Annual
Mantle Fielding

Museums:
Musee Luxembourg, Paris

Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton