Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧太后 with attendants on Zhonghai Lake, Beijing, 1903.  n one series of images—taken in the summer of 1903 at Zhonghai, a lake west of the Forbidden City—Cixi adopts the role of Guanyin, the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion. She sits near an array of potted lotuses, before a painted backdrop of the Purple Bamboo Grove of Guanyin. Her attendants adopt the guises of the bodhisattva’s attendants. Summer, Beijing, China, Vintage Photos, People, Qing Dynasty, Chinese Culture, Ancient China, Empress Of China