Portrait of the Empress Dowager Cixi, ca.1903-05. Empress Dowager Cixi or Empress Dowager Tzu-hsi (29 November 1835 15 November 1908), of the Manchu Yehenara clan, was a powerful and charismatic woman who unofficially but effectively controlled the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years, from 1861 to her death in 1908.
