China’s Qing court produced the largest group of surviving paintings of Chinese empresses, many of which were once used for ancestor worship in the private imperial collection. Join us as Daisy Yiyou Wang, who co-curated the 2019 Empresses exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum, explores an extraordinary portrait of Empress Xiaoxian, whose early death broke the heart of the Qianlong emperor. Wang will examine details of the portrait, discuss its remarkable conservation journey, and even share new discoveries about where it used to hang. Wang, who is Deputy Director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum, will also discuss how her institution will look at artifacts from Beijing’s Forbidden City through a modern lens when it opens later this year.