Katharine Carl

Katharine Carl
Carl in Chinese costume
Born	(1865-02-12)February 12, 1865 New Orleans, Louisiana
Died	December 7, 1938(1938-12-07) (aged 73) New York City
Nationality	American
Education	Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois and William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Alma mater	Tennessee State Female College (Master of Arts)
Known for	Painting portraits of Empress Dowager Cixi

Katharine Augusta Carl (1865–1938) (sometimes spelled Katherine Carl) was an American portrait painter and author. She made paintings of notable and royal people in the United States, Europe and Asia. She spent nine months in China in 1903 painting a portrait of the Empress Dowager Cixi for the St. Louis Exposition. On her return to America, she published a book about her experience, titled With the Empress Dowager.

Katharine Augusta Carl was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 12, 1865, the daughter of Francis Augustus Carl, Ph.D., LL.D. and Mary Breadon Carl. She had a brother named Francis A. Carl.

Carl graduated with a Master of Arts from the Tennessee State Female College in 1882. She studied art under Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois and William-Adolphe Bouguereau in Paris, and then exhibited her works in the Paris salons.

Carl painted portraits, including those made in 1892 of Mahomet Ali and Prince El Hadj in Algiers. She made portraits of Paul S. Reinsch and Sir Richard Dame.

Throughout her career, she traveled and painted in Europe and China many times. In London, she was a member of the Lyceum Club and the International Society of Women Painters. She was a member of the Société des Artistes Français of Paris, the International Jury of Fine Arts, and the International Jury of Applied Arts of the St. Louis Exposition.

Katharine Carl was contacted by Sarah Pike Conger, the wife of American Ambassador Edwin H. Conger with an offer to come to China in the summer of 1903 to paint a portrait of the Empress Dowager Cixi for the Chinese exhibit at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. She spent a total of nine months in China and painted four portraits of the Empress Dowager, later recording her memories as the only western foreigner to live within the precincts of the Chinese imperial court in its last days in a book that was published in 1906.