RY OF THE FAN N700LLISCROFT RHEAD ; w*% r& * :"./, »/ *^H LIBRARY Gift of Mrs. Leroy M. Lewis, Jr. braille des Arts Decoratifs & Inrinstriels OUVRAGES A GRANDS RABAIS LOUIS DE MEULENEERB :leph. 21, Rue du Chene tki.kimi. m • 7nft3 _ Sablon : 2083 HISTORY OF THE FAN This edition is limited to 450 copies for sale in Europe and the British Dominions, of which this is JVo.<?J. I \ •a 3 .. W if 3 ill h H ISTORY OF THE FAN BY G. WOOLLISCROFT RHEAD R.E.; HON. A.R.C.A. LOND.; AUTHOR OF 'THE PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN'; 'A HANDBOOK OF ETCHING'; 'THE TREAT- MENT OF DRAPERY IN ART'; 'STUDIES IN PLANT FORM' 'CHATS ON COSTUME,' ETC.; JOINT AUTHOR OF 'STAFFORDSHIRE POTS AND POTTERS' 'BRITISH POTTERY MARKS' LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. Ltd. DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W. 1910 Edinburgh : T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty no E O DEDICATED (BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION) TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS OF WALES PUBLISHERS NOTE THE majority of the blocks in this work were made direct from the actual Fans by Messrs. John Swain and Sons, to whom the Publishers are indebted for the skill and ingenuity with which they have overcome the many special difficulties incidental not only to the subjects themselves, but to the conditions under which many of those in private houses had to be reproduced. The Colour Plates are printed by Messrs. Edmund Evans. The block of the Fan Mount by Rosa Bonheur was made by Mr. F. Jenkins in Paris. The block of the Japanese Fan Mount, The Tama- gawa River, is by the Grout Engraving Company. The lithograph of Bacchus and Ariadne is by Messrs. Martin, Hood and Larkin. PREFACE IT is, perhaps, a little singular that up to the present no work making any pretension to completeness has appeared in English dealing with that little instrument so intimately associated with both civil and religious life of the past, the Fan. Even on the Continent the literature of the Fan is exceedingly scanty. M. Blondel's work, Histoire des Eventails, published in 1875, is but sparsely illus- trated, and is mainly based upon the researches of M. Natalis Rondot, whose Rapport stir les objets de Par lire was undertaken at the instance of the French Government in 1854. An English translation of M. Octave Uzanne's brilliant sketch appeared in 1884, and is unillustrated except by fanciful border designs ; while Lady Charlotte Schreiber's stately tomes and Mrs. Salwey's Fans of Japan deal only with more or less isolated portions of the subject. These, together with Der Packer, by Georg Buss, appearing in 1904, one or two illustrated catalogues and a few desultory magazine articles, form the sum-total of the Fan's literature. This paucity of book material, and the general absence of information amongst individuals, is at once an advantage and a dis- advantage. I have in dealing with this subject such benefits as the breaking of new ground gives ; I have at the same time to contend with the difficulty of collecting information from sources so scattered, and in many instances so obscure. To the works above mentioned, which indeed have been most helpful, it is only justice to add the admirable article on ' Les Disques cruciferes, le Flabellum, et rUmbella,' in La Revue de I Art Ckre'tien, by M. Charles de Linas ; the sparkling and entertaining 'History on Fans' by Henri Bouchot in Art and Letters for 1883 ; an excellent article on Chinese Fans by H. A. Giles in Preiser's Magazine for May 1879; articles in b ix HISTORY OF THE FAN various publications by MM. Paul Mantz and Charles Blanc ; all these I have freely used, and gladly acknowledge my indebtedness. But, since it is scarcely possible, in a subject covering such an extended area, to avoid inaccuracies of some sort, I must endeavour to forestall any possible criticism by saying that no pains have been spared to render the book as free from errors as may be. As to the line illustrations, they must be considered merely diagrammatic, and not in any sense realistic representations of the various objects. I welcome this opportunity of making what is an unusually long list of acknowledgments of help received. Firstly, to my Publishers for their enterprise, the admirable manner in which the book is produced, and for their uniform courtesy. Secondly, to the many owners of fans, these including the most exalted personages, who have so generously responded to my invitation to lend their fragile treasures. My thanks are also due to the officials of the various Museums, those of the Print Room of the British, and the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museums; to Sir C. Purdon Clarke, C.I.E., F.S.A., and his son, Mr. Stanley Clarke of the India Museum ; Dr. Peter Jessen of the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin ; Professor Pazaurek, Stuttgart ; Dr. Hans W. Singer ; to Sir George Birdwood, K.C.I.E., C.S.I., who has kindly read the three chapters on ancient fans ; to Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, D.C.L.; Mr. W. Holman Hunt, O.M., R.W.S.; Sir L. Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A.; the Rev. J. Foster, D.C.L. ; the Clerk of the Worshipful Company of Fanmakers ; the Librarian at Welbeck ; Mr. Wilson Crewdson ; Mr. W. Harding Smith; Mr. W. L. Behrens ; Mr. R. Phene Spiers; Mr. G. F. Clausen; Mr. J. Ettlinger; Mons. J. Duvelleroy ; Mr. H. Granville Fell; Mr. Frank Brangwyn, A.R.A.; Mr. Talbot Hughes; Mr. Frank Falkner, for help in various ways ; and last, though by no means least, to Mrs. E. P. Medley, for most valuable assistance in translation. London, 1909. G. WoOLLlSCROFT Rhead. x CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ........... ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi" CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN AND USES OF THE FAN i CHAPTER II FANS OF THE ANCIENTS 10 CHAPTER III FANS OF THE FAR EAST 33 CHAPTER IV FANS OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES 77 CHAPTER V THE FLABELLUM AND EARLY FEATHER-FAN «7 CHAPTER VI PAINTED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) 107 CHAPTER VII PAINTED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES (FRENCH) .138 xi HISTORY OF THE FAN CHAPTER VIII PAGE PAINTED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES (ENGLISH, DUTCH, FLEMISH, AND GERMAN) . 176 CHAPTER IX ENGRAVED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. FART 1 304 CHAPTER X ENGRAVED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. PART II 232 CHAPTER XI MODERN AND PRESENT DAY FANS 272 INDEX 301 PEACOCK.PEATHER I AW [l Mm it Japanese Painting. British Museum.) Xll ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR i. RINALDO IN THE GARDEN OF ARMIUA. Louis XV. H.R.H. The Princess of Wales Frontispiece TO FACE TAr.E I 2. A CONCERT. Dutch. H.R.H. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll 3. LA DANSE, AFTER LANCRET. Dr. Law Adam 4. SEA NYMPHS. Italian. Mr. W. Burdett-Coutts, M.P. 5. THE RAPE OF HELEN. 'Vernis Martin.' Lady Lindsay 6. CHINESE FAN. Filigree and Enamel. Mr. M. Tomkinson 7. CHINESE FAN. Red Lacquer. Miss Moss 8. HOTEI AND THE CHILDREN. By KanO-Sho-Yei, 1591. Mr. Wilson Crewdson. 9. THE TAMAGAWA RIVER. By Rang San Raku. Mr. Wilson Crewdson 10. CUT VELLUM FAN. Mr. L. C. R. Messel .... 11. F'AN MOUNT. Bacchus and Ariadne. Mrs. Bruce-Johnston Between pages is 12. PIAZZA OF ST. MARK. Mr. W. Burdett-Coutts, M.P. 13. SPANISH FAN PAINTED IN THE CHINESE TASTE. Lady Lindsay 14. PASTORELLE. Spanish. H.S.H. Princess Victor ok Hohenlohe-Langenburg 15. BULL FIGHTS. Spanish. Lady Northcliffe ..... 16. PASTORELLE. Louis XV. Wvatt Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum 17. MOMENS MUSICALS. 'Vernis Martin.* Mr. Leopold de Rothschild, C.V.O. 18. THE RAPE OF HELEN. 'Vernis Martin.' Lady Northcliffe 19. DIDO AND /ENEAS. Mrs. Bischoffsheim. Facing reverse of same Fan between pages 162 and 163 20. 'CABRIOLET' FAN. Lady Northcliffe ....... 164 xiii 8 27 3° 46 S3 67 68 107 2 and 123 125 127 ■32 134 '38 142 158 HISTORY OF THE FAN TO FACE TAGE 21. DIRECTOIRE AND EMPIRE FANS. Miss Ethel Travlrs Birdwood, and Mr. L. C. R. Messel, facing 'Sans Gene' and Empire Fans Between pages 170 and 171 22. TELEMACHUS AND CALYPSO. The Dowacer Marchioness of Bristol . . 176 23. WEDDING FAN. Directoire. Mr. L. C. R. Messel ..... 188 24. WEDDING FAN. H.R.H. Princess Henrv of Battenberg .... 272 25. LE CERF DE ST. HUBERT. By Rosa Bonhkur. M. Georges Cain . . 280 26. THE RED FAN. Conversations Galantes. By Charles Conder. Mr. John Lane 294 27. THE BLUE FAN. By Frank Brancwyn, A.R.A. ..... 296 ILLUSTRATIONS IN HALF-TONE 28. LE BAL D'AMOURS. H.R.H. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll . 29. HOMMAGES OFFERED TO MADAME DE POMPADOUR. Mrs. Bruce-Johnston 30. EGYPTIAN FAN HANDLES. British Museum .... 31. TERRACOTTA STATUETTES. „ 32. AN EASTERN POTENTATE TAKING TEA. Mrs. Hungerford Pollen 33. INDIAN FLY-WHISKS AND PEACOCK EMBLEM OF ROYALTY. India Museum 34. LARGE HAND-FAN OK SANDALWOOD. Mrs. Hungerford Pollen 35. FLAG AND PALM-LEAF FANS. India Museum 36. CHINESE FAN. Filigree and Enamel. Victoria and Albert Museum 37. HAND-SCREEN, Front and Reverse. Mr. Wilson Crewdson 38. LACQUERED FAN. Lady Northcliffe ..... CARVED IVORY FAN WITH THE NAME ANGELA. Mr W. Burdett-Couits, M.P 39. CHINESE FAN WITH IVORY MINIATURES. Mr. W. Bukdett-Coutts, M.P. 40. CHINESE FEATHER-FAN (ARGUS PHEASANT) WITH CASE. Victoria and Albert Museum ........ 41. NETSUKI (DAI TENGU). Mr. W. L. Behrens . CAMP-FAN OF EAGLE FEATHERS. Mr. L. C. R. Messel . DAGGER-FAN. Mr. W. L. Behrens ..... 42. SUYE HIRO OGI (Wide End) Open and Closed. Mr. W. Harding Smith 43. AKOME OGI (COURT FAN). Mr. Wilson Crewdson . WAR FAN (GUN SEN). Mr. W. Harding Smith xiv 2 6 U 28 33 38 41 42 48 5° 54 54 56 59 60 60 60 63 64 64 44- 45- 46. 47- 48. 49- BO- 5*- 53- 54- 55- 56. 57. 58- 59 60, 61 62. 63 64 65. 66. ILLUSTRATIONS IN HALF-TONE Tn FACF I'ACE FOUR WAR FANS (GUMBAI UCHIWA). Mr. L. C. R. Mf.ssel, Mr. W. Harding Smith, Mr. W. L. Behrens ....... WAR FANS (GUN SEN). Mr. L. C. R. Messel and Mr. W. Harding Smith MODERN JAPANESE FANS. Ivory with Gilt Lacquer and Painted Fan signed ' Kunihisa.' Mr. M. Tomkinson . ... THREE CHUKEI. Mr L. C. R. Messki. ..... PALM-LEAF AND HIDE FANS. British Museum ... PALM FANS, COCKADE INSCRIPTION FAN, FLY-WHISKS (TAHITI), AND NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN FAN. British Museum 69 72 74 76 77 82 87 THE TOURNAMENT. By A. Moreau. Victoria and Aixert Museum FLABELLUM OF TOURNUS. Museo Nazionai.e. Florence i Facing each other ■ ) 11 i> Details J between pages 90 and 91 IVORY FAN AND FLABELLA HANDLES. British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum ....... FAN OF QUEEN THEODOLINDA. Cathedral of Monza COPTIC FLAG-FANS. Konigl. Museum, Berlin QUF2EN ANNE FEATHER-SCREEN. Mr. L. C. R. Messel . DECOUPK FAN. Musee de Cluny .... FAN OF MICA. Mr. L. C. R. Messel .... VENUS AND ADONIS. By Leonardo Germo. Wyatt Collection, Albert Museum ....... AN EMBARCATION. Mrs. Hamilton Smythe . CUPID'S HIVE. The Dowager Marchioness of Bristol THE TRIUMPH OF BACCHUS. Lady Northcliffe . BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. Lady Northcliffe THE MARRIAGE OF CUPID AND PSYCHE. Mr. Frank Falkner A SACRIFICE. Mrs. Bruce-Johnston. Facing the Colour Plate of Bacchus and Ariadne . . . Between pages 122 and 123 RINALDO IN THE GARDEN OF ARMIDA. Miss Moss . . . . 129 CAPTURE OF THE BALEARIC ISLANDS. Mr. L. C. R. Messel BETROTHAL OF LOUIS XVI. WITH MARIE-ANTOINETTE. Mrs. Frank W. Gibson (Eugenie Joachim) ..... SPANGLED FAN. Spanish. Mr. Talbot Hughes FETE DE I.'AGRICULTURE, 1798. Mr. L. C. R. Messel . XV 92 96 98 102 ■ 109 1 10 Victoria and 114 116 116 . 118 118 , 121 129 130 136 136 HISTORY OF THE FAN 67. 68. 69. 7°- 7*- 73- 74- 75- 76 77- 78. 79- 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. S8. 8» TO KACK PAGE LA DANSE, AND PASTORELLE. Duchess of Portland .... 141 PASTORELLE, AFTER LANCRET. H.R.H. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll . 144 ACTVEON FAN. Muske de Cluny . . . . . . . 146 CEPHALUS AND AURORA. Mrs. Bischoffsheim ..... 14S VFRNIS MARTIN. Mrs. F. R. Palmer 148 A PASTORELLE, WITH TWO PORTRAIT MEDALLIONS. Wyatt Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum . . . . . . 15° THE PARTING OF HELEN AND ANDROMACHE. The Dowacer Marchioness of Bristol . . . 153 BATTOIR FAN. The Dowager Marchioness of Bristol .... 154 FETE CHAMPfiTRE. ' Vernis Martin.' Wyatt Collection, Victoria and Alefrt Museum . . . . . . . 156 BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. Metropolitan Museum, New York . . . . 160 BUILDING OF THE PLACE LOUIS XV. The Dowager Marchioness of Bristol 162 DIDO AND /ENEAS. Reverse. Mrs. Bischoffsheim. Facing the Colour Plate of same Fan ........ Between pages 162 and 163 'CABRIOLET' FAN. The Dowager Marchioness of Bristol \ Facing each other „ „ „ „ J between pages 164 and 165 WEDDING FAN. The Countess of Bradford ] „ „ Lady Lindsay j STICK OF MARIE-ANTOINETTE FAN. Musee du Louvre .... SANS GENE AND EMPIRE FANS. Mr. L. C. R. Messel. Facing Colour Plate of Between pages 170 and 17 Facing each other between pages 166 and 167 169 Directoire and Sans Gene Fans ' LORGNETTE ' FANS. Mr. L. C. R. Messel ..... SPANGLED GAUZE FANS. Mr. L. C. R. Messel .... A LONDON FAN SHOP. Mr. L. C. R. Messel .... THE SURRENDER OF MALTA. Mrs. Hungerford Pollen . FETES ON THE OCCASION OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE DAUPHIN. Wyatt Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum ..... ENGLISH FAN. THE VISIT. Collection of Baroness Meyer de Rothschild ENGLISH FAN WITH MEDALLIONS AFTER COSWAY. Wyatt Collection Victoria and Albert Museum ....... IVORY EMPIRE FAN. Lady Northcliffe ..... SPANGLED FAN WITH PAINTED MEDALLIONS. Mrs. Frank W. Gibson xvi '73 175 '78 178 180 180 182 184 184 ILLUSTRATIONS IN HALF-TONE TO FACE PACK 90. WEDDING FAN. Mrs. Hawkins 186 ST. PETER'S, ROME. By J. Goupy. Dr. Law Adam . . . . . 186 91. EARLY DUTCH FAN. The Dowager Marchioness of Bristol . . . 190 92. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. Dutch. Miss Moss -i Facing each other 93. AN EMBARCATION. Dutch. M. J. Duvelleroy J between pages 192 and 193 94. DUTCH FAN WITH HEAD ON STICK. Sir L. Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A. 95. AN OFFERING TO CERES. H.R.H. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll . 96. DUTCH FAN (DECOUPE). Mrs. Davies-Gilbert .... DUTCH FAN WITH 'PAGODA' STICK. Mr. L. C. R. Messel . 97. MEDALLION FAN. German. Given by H.R.H. The Duke of Coburg to H.R.H The Princess Victoria, 1836. H.R.H. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll 98. GERMAN FAN. Given by H.R.H. The Prince Consort to Queen Victoria „ „ Landesgewerbe Museum, Stuttgart .... 99. TWO GERMAN FANS. Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin 100. ENGRAVED HAND-SCREEN. A. Carracci. Schreiber Collection, British Museum „ „ „ C. F. Horman. „ „ „ 101. FETE ON THE ARNO, 'EVENTAIL DE CALLOT.' British Museum 102. GROTESQUE FAN, STYLE OF CALLOT. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris 103. THE FOUR AGES. Abraham Bosse ...... 104. TITLE-PAGE. Nicholas Loire. Schreiber Collection, British Museum . LA COQUETTE. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris .... 105. TAKING OF THE BASTILLE. Schreiber Collection, British Museum . DUC D'ORLEANS. Miss Moss ....... 106. ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris . 'CABRIOLET' FAN. Schreiber Collection, British Museum 107. NAPOLEON SHOWS HIS TROOPS THE CHANNEL. Bibliotheque Nationale Paris .......... 108. PROJECTED INVASION OF ENGLAND, 1803. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris 109. MARRIAGE OF NAPOLEON. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris ADVENTURE IN RUSSIA. Schreiber Collection, British Museum no. A NEW GAME OF PIQUET. Schreiber Collection, British Museum hi. THE MOTION. Schreiber Collection, British Museum THE NEW NASSAU FAN. Schreiber Collection, British Museum c xvii 194 196 198 198 200 200 200 202 204 204 206 208 210 212 212 214 214 222 222 224 226 228 228 232 236 236 HISTORY OF THE FAN TO FA' E PACK 238 112. THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS. Mr. C. Fairfax Murray 113. VISIT OF GEORGE III. TO THE ROYAL ACADEMY. Mr. F. Perigal . 114. MR. THOMAS OSBORNE'S DUCK-HUNTING. Schreiber Collection, British Museum .......... 115. THE TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS. Mr. VV. Burdett-Coutts, M.P. . THE PARADES OF BATH. Mr. W. Burdett-Coutts, M.P. . 116. A TRIP TO GRETNA. Schreiber Collection, British Museum 'BARTOLOZZI' FAN. Mrs. Frank W. Gibson (Eugenie Joachim) . 11;. MISS CHARLOTTE YONGE'S FAN. Miss Moss .... FAN OF ASSES' SKIN. Miss Moss 118. PAINTED IVORY BRISE FAN. Mr. Leopold de Rothschild, C.V.O. PORTUGUESE FAN. Mr. J. H. Etherington-Smith .... LACE MOUNT. Youghal Co-operative Lace Society AN ENTOMOLOGIST. Countess Granville ..... COCKS AND HENS. Claudius Popelin. Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris AUTOGRAPH FAN. Sir Lawrence Alma Tadem,\. O.M., R.A. „ „ Japanese. Mr. Frank Brangwvn, A.R.A. 122. LACE FAN PRESENTED TO QUEEN ALEXANDRA FOR USE AT CORONA TION. Her Majesty the Queen ...... 123. FEATHER-FAN. H.R.H. The Princess of Wales .... 124. THE MEET. By Charles Detaille. M. J. Duyelleroy 125. LACE FAN. By Alexandre. Victoria and Albert Museum "1 To face each other 126. LACE FAN. M. J. Duvelleroy . . . . .J between pages 292 and 294 127. DESIGN FOR FAN. By Frank Brangwvn, A.R.A. .... 298 A GARLAND OF CHILDREN. By G. Woolhscroft Rhead ... 298 119. 120. 121. 246 252 =58 =58 264 264 274 274 276 276 278 278 282 284 284 286 289 290 ILLUSTRATIONS IN LINE Feather-fan, Nimroud Peacock-feather Fan Head-piece . Initial — Boy with Fan Tea-fan IX xii xiii 1 9 PAGE Initial — Vulture with Emblem of Protection 10 Fire-fan, Colombia . . . . I2 Portuguese ' Abano ' . . . . . 12 Plaited Hand-fan, Egyptian . . 13 Hand-fan, Egyptian ,3 XV111 ILLUSTRATIONS IN LINE Hand-fan, Egyptian Fly-whisk, Egyptian Ceremonial Fans — from Rosellini >> ij ... Investiture of the Office of Fan-bearer Umbrella or Canopy of Chariot of Rameses m Initial — Assyrian Fly-whisk Assyrian and Persian Fly-whisks . Covers of Fly-whisks Tail-piece — from an Assyrian relief Initial — Greek Girl with Fan Greek Fans ..... Greek Girl with Fan Tail-piece — Girl with Fan Initial — from printed Cotton Hanging, India Cingalese Sesata ..... Fly-whisk — from an illumination . ,, from a painting on talc, Madras Emblem of Royalty Royal Standards . Hand-fan, . Plaited-Grass Fan Flag-fan Talapat Fan and Pankhas Burmese Fan of Gold . Portion of Embroidered Muslin (Chamba, Nineteenth Century) Fly-whisk used by Jains Circular Fan, ' Like the Moon ' . Fan of Hsi Wang Mu (Japanese Painting British Museum) .... Fan of Ming Dynasty (Painting, British Museum) .... White Plumed Fan of Hsi Wang Mu Two Pear-shaped Screens Initial — Japanese Feather-fan, Japanese Painting Hand-screen, „ „ Fly-whisk, Upper Nile PAGE '4 '4 15 16 17 '9 20 26 27 28 32 33 37 38 38 39 40 41 41 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 47 48 49 60 61 61 77 PAGE Plaited Fans, South Pacific Islands 79 Plaited Fans, Hawaiian 80 Various Fans, Samoa .... 81 „ British Guiana 81 „ Ecuador and Peru . 81 „ South-Eastern Pacific 81 Flag-fan, West Africa .... 83 Fly-whisk, Andaman Islands «5 Tahiti 85 „ Matabele .... 86 „ East African 86 Angel with Flabellum .... 87 Processional Flabellum 88 Coptic Flabellum .... 89 Flabellum, from Greek Psalter 93 „ from Goar .... 94 ,, Monza .... 96 Flag-fan, from Vatican (a glass vase) . 98 Banner-fan, from ivory diptich 99 Ghost-fan, Malay Archipelago 106 Fan of Ferrara, or Duck's-foot, 107 Fragments of Fan from Chateau de Pierre 109 Small Rigid Fans, 1590 109 Feather-fan, Milan .... no Diagram of parts of Folding-fan . 116 Rigid Screen of Bologna, 1590 . '27 Fan of Rice-straw, Fifteenth Century . '38 Dimensions of Fans, 1550-1780 . 148 Japanese Lady's Court-fan . '75 Long-handled Feather-fan . .76 Ostrich-feather Folding-fan, Amsterdam 196 Flag-fan, Titian 204 Ivory Fan, Madras, Nineteenth Century 231 Plaited Fan 232 Hide-fan, from Benin . • • 271 Queen Kapiolani's Fan 272 From a Chinese Screen, Victoria and Albert Museum ...••• 299 XIX ^ fc t & I 1 i 13 CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN AND USES OF THE FAN N the beginning, before the human advent, when the earth was peopled only by the Immortals, a bright son was born to Aurora, whose soft and agreeable breath was as honey in the mouth of the gods, and the beating of whose gossamer wings imparted a delicious coolness to the air, moderating the heat of summer, and providing the first suggestion of, and occasion for, the dainty little plaything we have under considera- tion, somewhat waggishly described as a kind of wind instrument, not, perhaps, so much to be played upon as to be played with, and invaluable as assisting to follow out the wisest of the Sage's maxims when he bids us keep cool. This delicate toy, this airy creation of gauze, ivory, and paint, frail and fragile almost as the flowers kissed by Aurora's son, endowed apparently with the gift of perpetual youth, may claim a lineage older than the Pyramids ; having its origin and being in the infancy of the world, before the birth of history, in that golden age when life was a perpetual summer, and care was not, when all was concord and harmony, and old age, long protracted, was dissolved in a serene slumber, and wafted to the mansions of the gods, the regions of eternal love and enjoyment. It was in these halcyon days that the human family sat in its palm groves, which afforded not only refreshing shade, during the hours when the sun is at its height, but also provided the precursor of this A I HISTORY OF THE FAN ' Servant of Zephyrus ' — serving further to temper those beams which are the source of all life, and light, and music, for are not all the learned agreed with the late Mr. George Augustus Sala, that if a thorn was the first needle, doubtless a palm leaf was the first fan ? ' Beneath this shade the weary peasant lies, Plucks the broad leaf, and bids the breezes rise.' ' The poets, however, who lay claim rather to inspiration than to the dry bones of mere learning, supply us with many fanciful suggestions as to the fan's origin — a Spanish story (duly told on a printed fan) has it that the first fan was a wing which Cupid tore from the back of Zephyrus for the purpose of fanning Psyche as she lay a-sleeping on her bed of roses. A quaint, though somewhat inconsequent, conceit is that of the French eighteenth-century poet, Augustin de Piis, quoted by M. Uzanne in his work on the fan, in which Cupid, at an inopportune moment, surprises the Graces, who were as much embarrassed as the god was delighted — to hide their confusion, with the hand that was unemployed, they endeavoured to cover up both eyes by spreading the fingers. ' And soon Dan Cupid was aware That though they veiled their eyes, between The fingers of that Trio fair Himself was very clearly seen ; On which his little curly head Deeply to meditate began, Till from their fair hands thus outspread He took his first hint for the Fan.' Whether we accept this explanation or not, and whatever circumstances attended the origin of the fan, it is abundantly clear that Cupid had a hand in it. Has not Gay told how the master Cupid traced out the lines, conceived the shape, converted his arrows into sticks, and from their 1 Gay, The Fan. 2 -I 4 s ■i us 1 Si & * THE ORIGIN AND USES OF THE FAN barbed points, softened by love's flame, forged the pin ? Is not the fan one of the chief weapons in the armoury of the Love-God ? Is it not the rampart from behind which the fiercest fire of love's artillery is directed ? Nay, is it not in very truth the sceptre of the Love-God ? Did not the Greeks early recognise this fact by placing the plumed fan in the hands of Eros himself? The fan is at once the creation of Amor and the chief ensign of his sovereignty ! And its uses? Madame la Baronne de Chapt, in the first volume of her CEuvres Philosophiqnes, discovers a hundred such: — 'It is so charming, so con- venient, so suited to give countenance to a young girl, and to extricate her from embarrassment, that it cannot be too much exalted ; we see it straying over cheeks, bosoms, hands, with an elegance which everywhere provokes admiration. ' Love uses a fan as an infant does a toy — makes it assume all sorts of shapes ; breaks it even, lets it fall a thousand times to the ground. . . . ' Is it a matter of indifference, this fallen fan ? Such a fall is the result of reflection, of careful calculation, intended as a test of the ardour and celerity of aspiring suitors. — And the successful suitor, the favoured swain ? Is it not he who discovers the greatest celerity in returning the fan to its charming owner, and, in doing so, imprints a secret but chaste kiss upon the fair hand that takes it, and is rewarded by a look ten thousand times more eloquent than speech ? ' And if, peradventure, by the spell of some magician, this little instrument could itself be endowed with speech ! Aha ! ma chere madame, what tales could it not unfold from the recesses of its fluted leaves, what whispers ! what confidences ! what assignations ! what intrigues ! ' Pour une Espagnole,' writes Charles Blanc, ' toutes les intrigues de l'amour, tous les manoeuvres de la galanterie, sont cachees dans les plis de son even tail. Les audaces furtifs du regard, les aventures de la parole, les 3 HISTORY OF THE FAN aveux risquds, les demi-mots profess du bout des levres, tout cela est dissimule" par 1'eVentail, qui a l'air d'interdire ce qu'il permet de faire, et d'intercepter ce qu'il envoie.' Disraeli (Contarini Fleming), in similar strain, with no less eloquence, says : ' A Spanish lady with her fan might shame the tactics of a troop of horse. Now she unfolds it with the slow pomp and conscious elegance of the bird of Juno ; now she flutters it with all the languor of a listless beauty, now with all the liveliness of a vivacious one. Now in the midst of a very tornado she closes it with a whirr, which makes you start. Magical instrument ! in this land it speaks a particular language, and gallantry requires no other mode to express its most subtle conceits, or its most unreasonable demands, than this delicate machine.' /Women,' says the witty Spectator, 'are armed with Fans as men with Swords — and sometimes do more execution with them. . . . There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use of in the flutter of a Fan. There is the angry Flutter, the modest Flutter, the timorous Flutter, the confused Flutter, the merry Flutter, and the amorous Flutter. Not to be tedious, there is scarce any emotion in the mind which does not produce a suitable agitation in the Fan ; insomuch that if I only see the Fan of a disciplined Lady I know very well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes. I have seen a Fan so very angry, that it would have been dangerous for the absent lover who provoked it to have come within the wind of it : and at other times so very languishing, that I have been glad for the Lady's sake the lover was at a sufficient distance from it. I need not add that a Fan is either a Prude or Coquette according to the nature of the person who bears it.' Mr. George Meredith, too, would appear to have studied its motions : ' Lady Denewdney's fan took to beating time meditatively. Two or three times she kept it elevated, and in vain : the flow of their interchanging speech was uninterrupted. At last my father bowed to her from a distance. 4 THE ORIGIN AND USES OF THE FAN She signalled: his eyelids pleaded short sight, awakening to the apprehen- sion of a pleasant fact ; the fan tapped, and he halted his march, leaning scarce perceptibly in her direction. The fan showed distress! 1 In one of the sprightliest of Steele's letters to the Tatler, the beauteous Delamira, upon the eve of her marriage, resigns her fan, having no further occasion for it. She is entreated by the matchless Virgulta, who had begun to despair of ever entering the matrimonial state, to confide to her the secret of her success. ' That swimming air of your body,' says she ; ' that jaunty bearing of your Head over your shoulder ; and that inexpressible Beauty in your manner of playing your Fan, must be lower'd into a more confined Behaviour ; to show, That you would rather shun than receive Addresses for the future. Therefore, dear Delamira, give me these excellencies you leave off, and acquaint me with your Manner of Charming.' . . . Delamira explained that all she had above the rest of her Sex and contemporary Beauties was wholly owing to a Fan (left to her by her Mother, and had been long in the Family), which, whoever had in Possession, and used with Skill, should command the hearts of all her Beholders ; ' and since,' said she, smiling, ' I have no more to do with extending my Conquests or Triumphs, I '11 make you a present of this inestimable Rarity.' ' You see, Madam,' continued she, upon Virgulta's in- quiry as to the Management of that utensil, ' Cupid is the principal Figure painted on it ; and the skill in playing this Fan is, in your several Motions of it to let him appear as little as possible : for honourable Lovers fly all Endeavours to ensnare 'em ; and your Cupid must hide his Bow and Arrow, or he'll never be sure of his Game. You may observe that in all publick Assemblies, the sexes seem to separate themselves, and draw up to attack each other with Eye-shot ; That is the time when the Fan, which is all the Armour of Woman, is of most use in her Defence ; for our 1 Adventures of Harry Richmond (the italics are ours). 5 HISTORY OF THE FAN minds are constructed by the waving of that little Instrument, and our thoughts appear in Composure or Agitation according to the Motion of it. You may observe when Will Peregrine comes into the side Box, Miss Gatty flutters her Fan as a Fly does its Wings round a Candle ; while her elder Sister, who is as much in Love with him as she is, is as grave as a Vestal at his Entrance, and the consequence is accordingly. He watches half the Play for a Glance from her Sister, while Gatty is overlooked and neglected. I wish you heartily as much Success in the Management of it as I have had ; . . . Take it, good Girl, and use it without Mercy ; for the Reign of Beauty never lasted full Three Years, but it ended in Marriage, or Condemnation to Virginity.' ' If the fan is efficacious as a weapon of offence in Love's sieges, it is no less effective as a shield against Love's darts. On a painted Spanish fan in the Schreiber Collection in the British Museum are represented three fair nymphs in a wooded landscape, one of whom is receiving on her fan an arrow discharged by the Love-God, who is accompanied by my lady Venus in her car. On a scroll is the inscription, ' l'utilite" des eventails,' ' la utilidad de los abanicos.' This use of the fan as shield is adopted also by the shinldting, or monastic novitiate of Burma, who employs his large palm-fan, both as a shelter from the fierceness of the sun's rays, and as a screen from the sight of womankind, moving, in the latter instance, his fan from right to left as occasion requires, i.e. whenever a woman happens to pass. A story, the source of which is not given,2 is told of Goldoni, who, being one evening the guest of a Venetian lady, was complimented by her upon the productions of his genius. ' Why, my lady,' he replied, ' anything provides a subject for a comedy.' 1 Taller, No. 52, Aug. 9, 1709. 2 Goldoni in his Mimoires gives an account of ' The Fan.' It was written and first brought out in Paris, and soon became universally popular, especially in Venice. — Helen Zimmern, Masterpieces of Foreign Authors. 6 i 1 I 1 h THE ORIGIN AND USES OF THE FAN 'Anything?' replied the lady. ' Anything,' emphatically replied the dramatist. ' Even this fan ? ' insisted the Beauty. ' I shall be indebted to you for life,' exclaimed Goldoni, struck with a happy thought. ' You have suggested to me my best comedy ; in a week you will read it.' 1 Many and manifold are the uses of the fan. What device, for example, could better display the beauty of a rounded arm, or the ivory whiteness of taper fingers? Such an instrument provides graceful and often much- needed employment to those same delicate fingers ; it supplies that necessary sense of completeness to the tout ensemble of the picture. And the comedy actress, desiring some trifle to emphasise a movement, to give point and expression to some particular action — what more effective instrument than a fan, the use of which, on the stage, has almost been elevated into a fine art ! ' Pray, ladies, copy Abington ; Observe the breeding in her air : There 's nothing of the actress there ! Assume her fashion if you can And catch the graces of her fan.' This at once recalls the saying of Northcote, who, although reluctantly compelled to admit Queen Charlotte's excessive plainness, an elegant and not a vulgar plainness — she had a beautifully shaped arm, and was fond of exhibiting it — exclaimed, ' She had a fan in her hand. Lord ! how she held that fan ! 2 Madame D'Arblay, in one of her most delightful letters, records a conversation between herself and Mr. Fairly (Col. Stephen Digby), who, upon the occasion of a visit to her, ' finding she entered into nothing,' 1 M. A. Flory, A Book about Fans. 2 Letter of Mrs. Scott, 1761, to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Robinson. — Dr. Doran, A Lady of the Last Century (Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu). HISTORY OF THE FAN took up a fan which lay on the table and began playing off various imitative airs with it, exclaiming, ' How thoroughly useless a toy!' ' " No," I said, "on the contrary, taken as an ornament, it was the most useful of any belonging to full dress ; occupying the hands, giving the eyes something to look at, and taking away stiffness and formality from the figure and deportment." '"Men have no fans," cried he, "and how do they do?" ' " Worse," quoth I plumply. ' " But the real use of the fan," cried he, " if there is any, is it not — to hide a particular blush that ought not to appear?" ' " Oh no, it would rather make it the sooner noticed." ' " Not at all ; it may be done under pretence of absence — rubbing the cheek, or nose — putting it up accidentally to the eye — in a thousand ways." ' The uses of the Fan ? They are legion ! — They record for us public events, military, political, civil ; they tell us our fortunes ; instruct us in Botany, in Heraldry, in tricks with cards ; they propound conundrums ; take us to the theatre, to bull-fights, to church, to the first balloon ascent ; and to Mr. Thomas Osborne's Duck-hunting ! In Shakespeare's day no lady thought of stirring abroad without this accompaniment, the care of the toy devolving upon the gentleman usher — ' Peter, take my fan and go before.' Romeo and Juliet. From the Aubrey MS., 1678, we learn that 'the gentlemen (temp. Henry vm.) had prodigious fans, as is to be seen in old pictures,1 like that instrument which is used to drive feathers, and in it a handle at least half a yard long ; with these the daughters were oftentimes 1 In an engraving of an English Noblewoman by Gaspar Rutz, 1581, a long-handled feather- fan appears. 8 4 $ 4 THE ORIGIN AND USES OF THE FAN corrected (Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief-Justice, rode the circuit with such a fan; Sir William Dugdale told me he was an eye-witness of it;1 the Earl of Manchester also used such a fan); but fathers and mothers slasht their daughters in the time of their besom discipline when they were perfect women.' 2 Hotspur's exclamation, i Henry IV., II. iii., further serves to show that this instrument could, upon occasion, be used as an offensive weapon : 'Zounds! an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan.' The strength hidden in such an apparently harmless toy is thus recognised equally by both sterner and gentler sex : the hint contained in the quaint and charming conceit addressed to the fan of his mistress by Louis de Boissy, author of Le Babillard, will not be lost upon lovers : ' Deviens le protecteur de ma vive tendresse, Bel eventail ! je te remets mes droits ; Et si quelque rival avait la hardiesse D'approcher de trop pres du sein de ma maitresse, Bel eventail : donne-lui sur les doigts ! ' 1 The fan here referred to was chiefly used inside the Courts as punkah, to create a little circulation of the air, and to dissipate the horrible odours for which these places were notorious. 2 This assertion that the handles of fans were occasionally employed in the castigation of refractory children is borne out by the droll story of Sir Thomas More punishing his daughters with a fan of peacock's feathers for the offence of running him into debt with the milliner. B CHAPTER II FANS OF THE ANCIENTS EGYPT THE word fan, or van, is derived from the Latin vannus, the Roman instrument for winnowing grain. This winnowing -fan, held sacred by all the peoples of the ancient world, together with the fire-fan (bellows), also a sacred instrument, and used by the priestesses of Isis to fan the flame of their altars — these must be accounted amongst the earliest of the ancient and prolific fan-family. To the first named are several references in Holy Writ. Isaiah, xxx. 24, speaks of the oxen and young asses that shall eat clean provender which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. Jeremiah, xv. 6-7, lamenting the backsliding of Jerusalem, exclaims, ' I am weary with repenting ; and I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land ' ; and again in li. 2, ' Send unto Babylon fanners that shall fan her, and shall empty her land.' In Matt. iii. 12, and Luke iii. 17, John the Baptist, announcing the coming of ' one mightier than I ' — ' He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire : whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner.' Both these instruments appear on a bas-relief from a tomb at Sakkarah, of the twelfth Pharaonic dynasty, circa B.C. 2366-2266, sixteen 10 FANS OF THE ANCIENTS hundred years before Isaiah wrote. In this some shepherds are roasting trussed and spitted ducks over fires which are being kept alive by the plaited, wedge-shaped hand-fan ; the winnowing-fan appearing in the same picture. Servius, in commenting on Virgil's mystical fan of Bacchus, (' mystica vannus Iacchi,' Georg. i. 166) affirms that the sacred rites of Bacchus pertained to the purification of souls ; in Assyria, also, it was introduced in the ceremonies connected with the worship of Bacchus and became a sacred emblem.1 This instrument, carried at the Dionysia or festivals in honour of Bacchus, was called Lichnon {^xvov), and was so essential to the solemnities of this god, that they could not be duly celebrated without it. So also Osiris, when judge of Amenti, holds in his crossed hands the crook and flagellum, the mystical vannus — 'whose fan is in his hand,'2 each of these instances having reference to the generative principle, and the improvement of the world by tillage. The passage in Jeremiah xiii. 24, ' Therefore will I scatter them as the stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness,' suggested the proud motto of the Kentish family of Septvans (Setvans): ' Dissipabo inimicos Regis mei ut paleam.' ' The enemies of my king will I disperse like chaff.' 3 On the brass of Sir Robert de Septvans, 1306, Chartham, Kent, the knight's shield and aillettes upon the shoulders are charged with the winnowing-fans from which he takes his name, and small fans are embroidered upon his surcoat. In the Lansdowne MSS. 855 B.M., the arms are thus given : ' Sir robt de sevens dazur e iij vans dor.' 1 Layard, Nineveh. J Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. 8 Thus Agamemnon in Troilus and Cressida, Act I. Scene iii. : ' in the wind and tempest of her frown, Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, Puffing at all, winnows the light away; And what hath mass, or matter, by itself Lies, rich in virtue, and unmingled.' I I HISTORY OF THE FAN The Greeks named pwi? the large flat instrument which was used to fan the fire : the diminutive piniSiov was applied to objects of similar form in ordinary use amongst both sexes for the purpose of fanning as well as to drive away the flies. Indeed the use of the fan as bellows appears to have been practically universal, and to have dated from a very early period of the world's history. The employment of these instruments, as well as the forms which they assumed, is con- tinued even to the present day : l in the Republic of Colombia, where fans are employed as much by men as by women, the kitchen of every hut and house throughout the country is provided with a fan in lieu of bellows, rectangular in form, albeit broader at the outside than at the short handle, and about 12 inches by 9 inches in size. These are formed of the young inside leaf of the cabbage-palm, the handle and back being the rib of the leaf, the fan portion being the fronds of the leaf plaited. The Portuguese fire-fans (Abano) made in the south of Portugal, and in universal use in that country, are round in shape, coarsely plaited in straw or rush, and fixed in a rough wooden handle. These, representing the two simplest elemental forms, are the primeval fans which have come down to us from the remotest periods of history, have endured through the centuries, and, like the fans in use in India at present, identical as a matter of fact with these in form, are as modern as they are ancient. 1 In a painting which represents a sacrifice to Isis, Ant. di Ercolano, ii. 60, a priest is seen fanning the fire upon the altar with a triangular flabellum, such as is still used in Italy. (Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.') 12 FANS OF THE ANCIENTS These two fans, the winnowing-fan and the fire-fan, minister to the two most pressing of man's necessities — to the first of his physical necessities, his daily bread, and to his chief mental necessity, the attainment of the bread of life ; the fire-fan keeping alive the flame sacred to the great goddess who is the mother of all things, mistress of the elements, giver of the golden grain, which, when ripened, is separated from the chaff by the winnowing-fan ; the one instrument, therefore, being the complement and counterpart of the other. The Egyptian plaited hand-fan, used for fanning the fire, as well as for other domestic purposes, was made in a precisely similar way to the Portuguese 'Abano' above referred to, except that instead of being a complete circle, it assumed the form of a rather full crescent. In the painted decoration of a tomb at Eileithyia, representing the interior of a storeroom, a workman is cooling, by means of one of these hand-fans, the liquid which is contained in a number of vases or amphorae. In a great funeral procession of a royal scribe at Thebes, servants carry, among other offerings, similar crescent-shaped matted fans, together with, in three instances, the more ornamental semicircular feather hand-fan used by ladies for the purpose of fanning themselves, and also, with a somewhat longer handle, waved by servitors in attendance upon great personages of both sexes. On an Egyptian tablet or stele of the twelfth dynasty, in the British Museum, the lady Khu is seated with her husbands, receiving offerings from their children ; a hand-fan of semicircular form rests against the seat ; this evidently not of feathers, but rigid, since the construction is 13 HISTORY OF THE FAN suggested in the representation, and obviously used by the lady herself rather than by attendants. The handles of these fans were of ivory, of wood painted, or of sandalwood, which latter, when warmed by the fingers, exhaled a delicious perfume. A few fan-handles exist in the various public museums ; two occur in the British Museum, together with a portion of a handle inscribed with the name of Nebseni, inspector of the goldsmiths of Amen, eighteenth dynasty, illustrated opposite. A primitive fly-whisk, of the type seen on the Assyrian monuments, appears in the Louvre, under Egypt, but undated and undescribed ; it is formed of grassy reeds of a buff ochre colour, bent backwards at the handle, and rudely tied with the same substance, the length being about 2 feet 6 inches. The standard, banner, and processional fans are usually formed of the feathers of the larger birds, fixed in a long wooden handle, the feathers, as well as the handle, being painted or dyed in brilliant colours. These, as will be seen by a reference to the examples from Rosellini, are designed with the consummate sense of proportion distinguishing all Egyptian work. In both the examples given, the tips of the feathers are surmounted by a tuft of small fluffy feathers, this being a device common to many countries, and is seen in the North American Indian fan illustrated, page 82. Many of these standard and processional fans, doubtless, were formed of some material stretched upon a semicircular frame, the fan decorated in various ways. They were in attendance on the king wherever he went ; they were also used as standards in war, the king's chariot being H Tivo Fan Handles. Portion, o f a. Fiwi. Handle, CnscriicJ n-itA- tAe.rw7iie- tfj/VeAse. Rritui-M* FANS OF THE ANCIENTS always accompanied by at least two. The fact that they were dedicated to the service of the gods is evidenced by a stele in the museum at Boulak, on which is represented Osiris enthroned with a flabellifer behind, waving the long-handled fan. The radiate fans, writes Professor Flinders Petrie, were used as sunshades, appearing in hieroglyphs as the determination of Khaib, i.e. shadow. In the temple of Rameses xil, B.C. 1135, a tablet represents the departure of the Khonsu from Thebes to the land of Bakhatana. A standard fan of ostrich feathers of the Indian murchal type is fixed in the bow of the boat bearing the god in his ark, and a semicircular standard fan in the stern ; both being inclined so as to meet above, and overshadow the ark.1 In the temple of Derri in Nubia, the sacred barque of the god Phre" is solemnly borne by twelve priests, the king accompanying in military costume; a flabellifer waves the long- handled fan. 1 Sir George Birdwood, Society of Arts, 1903. *5 HISTORY OF THE FAN Numerous representations of these long -handled, semicircular, standard fans occur on the monuments. At Thebes (Rhamessium) is figured a reception of the military chiefs and foreign envoys by Rameses in. Two servitors behind the king carry these fans, and two fan- bearers wave the ostrich-feather emblem. At Medinet Abu, the same king is seated in his chariot with three servitors waving the long- handled, semicircular fans. The tall, single ostrich plume was probably in the first instance a fly-whisk. It was the principal ensign of the office of fan-bearer, which was one of great distinction, and one of the highest in the gift of the monarch, none but royal princes or scions of the first nobility being permitted to hold it. The ceremony of investiture took place in the presence of the king seated upon his throne, and was usually performed after a victory, and granted for some distinguished service in the field. Two priests invest the holder with the robe, chain, and other insignia of his office, the fortunate recipient of the honour raising aloft the flabellum and crook, thus expressing his fidelity to his king and master. This was the usual formula of investiture of high office; its resemblance to the biblical account of Joseph's advancement will at once be apparent. 'And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck.' Upon the field of battle the fan-bearers either attended the monarch on foot or took command of a division with the rank of general. During 16 CEREMONIAL FANS (From Rosellirti.) FANS OF THE ANCIENTS the heat of battle, whether mounted in cars or engaged on foot, they either carried the emblem of their office in their hand, or slung it behind them. Their privileges were many, amongst them being the right of presenting prisoners to the king after a victory. The office was divided into two grades — those who served upon the right and left of the king respectively, the most honourable post being always conferred upon those of the highest rank, or for the most distinguished services. A certain number were always on duty, and were required to carry the monarch in the palanquin or chair of state, and to attend during the grand solemnities of the temple and upon all occasions of high state ceremonial. The monuments bear elo- quent testimony to the importance and significance of this object. At Thebes (palace of Medinet Abu), Rameses Mdiamoun appears in a magnificent palanquin, sur- rounded by no less than twenty bearers of the fan emblem, amongst whom are the sons of the king. In the same palace the ten sons of Rameses appear in the order of their precedence, bearing the emblem ; the hieroglyphics, by their side, indicating their name and functions. On an occasion when the king (Rameses iv.) receives the homage of the chiefs of the army, two servitors with the long semicircular fans, and two bearers of the fan emblem, are in attendance. c 17 INVESTITURE OF THE OFFICE OF FAN-BEARER (From Wilkinson.) HISTORY OF THE FAN The highest significance of the fan emblem is when it is grasped by the talons of the sacred vulture, guardian and protectress of the monarchs. This figure occurs repeatedly on the monuments ; at Medinet Abu, Rameses - M&amoun is seen subduing an army of Asiatics, the vulture waving the fan emblem over the head of the king. In the temple of Beit Oually in Nubia, Rameses n., helmeted, is striding over a fallen barbarian ; the vulture of protection hovers around the head of the hero. On the same monument Rameses seizes by the hair a barbarian with broken bow, the vulture again in attendance. Upon the completion of the victory, four fan-bearers, each with crook and fiabellum, offer the spoils of conquest to the king. On a bas-relief at Thebes, Seti i. is seen in his war-chariot sub- duing the barbarians, also accompanied by the vulture. At Philae, Ptolemy Philometor appears with a group of vanquished Asiatics, the vulture once more in attendance. In the papyrus of Hunefer (Book of the Dead) a winged Utchat, with Eye of Horus, waves the fan emblem over the head of Osiris. In the papyrus of Anhai, over the Standard of the West, which crowns the Solar Mount and supports the hawk Ra-Harmachis, two winged Hori appear as the protecting principle. This symbol of the vulture forms a motif for surface decoration on the ceiling of the hypostyle hall of the Rhamessium. Above the great bell capital, the vulture, grasping in each talon a fan emblem, is treated as a repeated ornamental pattern ; it also appears as decoration of the umbrella or canopy of the chariot of Rameses in. (Sesostris). We are thus enabled to realise the great part played by the fan alike in the military, civil, and religious life of Egypt. As an instrument in the hands of private persons, or even of slaves in attendance on individuals, it is less in evidence on the monuments, although we may naturally assume that in a climate such as Egypt this instrument would 18 FANS OF THE ANCIENTS be in constant requisition. We strain the eye of imagination to the very earliest period of the history of this mystic land, and see in fancy the Queen of Menes the Thinite, surrounded by slaves only a little less fair than herself, waving the fan of square form actually appearing on a cylinder in the Louvre ; we see, also in fancy, the famed and beautiful Queen Nit6cris, the handsomest woman of her time, builder of the third Pyramid, reclining upon her couch, the air being rendered less oppressive by the waving of the soft feather fan with which the monuments have made us familiar. Lastly, have we not Shakespeare's glowing picture of the fanning of the voluptuous 'serpent of old Nile,' Cleopatra? ' For her owne person, It begger'd all description : she did lye In her Pavillion, Cloth of Gold, of tissue, O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see The fancie out-worke nature ; on each side her Stood pretty- Dimpled boyes, like smiling Cupids, With divers-colour'd fannes whose winde did seem To glowe the delicate cheekes which they did coole, And what they undid, did.' UMBRELLA OR CANOPY OF THE CHARIOT OF RAMESES 111. 19 HISTORY OF THE FAN FANS OF THE ANCIENTS— Continued ASSYRIA THE employment of the fan in the religious ceremonies of Assyria has already been hinted at. There can be no possibility of doubt that the ceremonies and customs, both sacred and secular, connected with the fan, were common to all the countries of the East, these being the offspring of similar conditions and necessities. Thus we have in Assyrian sculpture frequent representa- tions of the fly-whisk. On a bas-relief from Nimroud King Sennacherib is standing in his chariot superintend- ing the moving of a colossal figure at the building of his palace at Kouyunjik, two attendants behind the chariot bearing an umbrella and fly-whisk ; on another relief we see Assur-bani-pal standing, bow and arrow in hand, pouring out a libation over four dead lions before an altar, his umbrella- bearer and fly-flapper being in attendance. We are also introduced to the garden or palm-grove of Assur-bani-pal's palace, wherein the king is being entertained by his queen at a banquet ; the queen holding in her left hand what is evidently a small fan and of the shape and general appearance of the pleated fan, but probably rigid. The royal fan-bearers were two in number, invariably eunuchs, their usual place being behind the monarch. The long-tasselled scarf appears to be the badge of the office, which was one of great dignity. Its holder was privileged to leave his station behind the throne and hand his master the sacred cup, the royal scent-bottle, or handkerchief, which latter article 20 FANS OF THE ANCIENTS invariably appears in the left hand. The usage of this office seems to have been very similar to that of Egypt ; in the absence of the vizier, or in subordination to him, he introduced captives to the king, reading out their names from a scroll or tablet in his left hand.1 The matter of the 'handkerchief opens up an important question. Sir George Birdwood, in a masterly address before the Society of Arts on the subject of ancient fans, says : ' On a " marble" in the British Museum, from Kouyunjik (near Mossul, i.e. Nineveh), representing Sennacherib, B.C. 681-705, enthroned before Lachish, two attend- ants stand behind the throne, each waving in his right hand, over the monarch's head, a murchal (fly-whisk) of undoubted peacocks' feathers, and each bearing in his left hand what I identify as the cover of the murchal. It is absurd to take it to be a pocket-handkerchief.' On the other hand, Mr. S. W. Bushell, in his Handbook of Chinese Art, refers to the fan- and towel-bearers in the Chinese sculptures of the Han dynasty ; these, although somewhat differing in shape from those of the Assyrian reliefs, evidently served a similar purpose. It is an extremely difficult point to de- termine ; in the reliefs of Assur-bani-pal at Susiana, of Sennacherib at Kouyunjik, and others, two flabelliferas walk behind the king's chariot bearing in their right hands the fly-whisks, their left hands not 1 George Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World. 21 HISTORY OF THE FAN being seen. Standing in the umbrella-covered chariot, immediately behind the king and charioteer, a figure bears a smaller handkerchief or cover in his right hand, but no evidence of a fly-whisk. The left hand in this instance also does not appear in the relief. In a representation of Assur-bani-pal in the Louvre (Layard, Monuments, Series n. Plate 51), the king holds in his right hand a small fan ; an attendant behind holds the cover or handkerchief in his right hand, but no fly-whisk. These objects are in most instances fringed, and in some cases embroidered with a narrow border. Assyrian fly-whisks were usually of feathers, set in a short handle of ivory, wood, or other material, carved or otherwise ornamented. There were two kinds, a smaller one which was a kind of brush, made of horse-hair or vegetable fibre, and a larger one of feathers ; the short brush fan belongs to the earlier period, the long feathered form to the later.1 The two forms, however, appear at the same time. In the bas-relief of the banquet above referred to, attendants bear dishes of fruits and meats, each being provided with the small fly-whisk, evidently for the purpose of driving away insects from the royal dishes. The ceremonies and usages connected with the fly-whisk open up a vast field of inquiry, far too involved to be adequately dealt with here ; some few aspects may, however, be touched upon. Baal-zebub, Beel-zebub, Beel-zebut, Bel-zebub, the Philistine god of Ekron, whom the Jews represented as Prince of Devils, was literally Lord Fly, or Lord of the Flies. When Ahaziah was sick he sent to consult the Lord Fly's oracle.2 The word Baal simply means owner, master, or lord. In Phoenicia and Carthage it was the custom of kings and great men to unite their names with that of their god, as Hannibal, ' grace of Baal,' Hasdrubal, ' help of Baal.' Amongst the Jews also many names of cities were compounded with Baal ; 1 Rawlinson. - 2 Kings i. i, 3, 6, 16. 22 FANS OF THE ANCIENTS as Baal-Gad, Baal-Hammon, Baal-Thamar. In the ' authorised version ' the name is Baal-zebub, afterwards changed to Beel-zebub ; the original con- ception is, however, one of great difficulty and obscurity, unless, indeed, we may directly connect the worship of Baal with that of the sun. Josephus declares that the Assyrians erected the first statue of Mars, and worshipped him as a God, calling him Baal. We read in the book of Kings how Josiah destroyed the altars which had been reared by Manasseh, and ' put down the idolatrous priests, . . . them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven'; these instances suggesting that Baal and the sun were two separate deities. On the other hand, Baal-Hammon is represented on a Cartha- ginian monument with a crown of rays. Baalbek was called by the Greeks Heliopolis (sun-city) and at Baal-Shemeh (house of the sun) there was a temple to Baal. If, therefore, we may regard Baal and the sun as synonymous, the matter is at once simplified, since the sun is the bringer of flies, and is in actual fact Lord of the Flies. According to Pliny, the Cyrenians offered sacrifices to the fly-catching god Achor, because the flies bred pestilence, and this author remarks that no sooner is the sacrifice offered, than the flies perish. The Greeks had their Jupiter Myiodes, or fly-hunter, to whom a bull was sacrificed in order to propitiate him in driving away the flies which infested the Olympic Games. There was also a Hercules Myiodes, the origin of whose worship Pausanias declares to have been the following : — Hercules, being molested by swarms of flies while he was about to offer sacrifice to Olympian Jupiter in the temple, offered a victim to that god under the name of Myagron, upon which all the flies flew away beyond the river Alpheus. Pausanias further refers to the festival of Athena at Aliphera in Arcadia, which was opened with a sacrifice and prayer to the Fly- catcher, and states that after the sacrifice, the flies gave no further trouble. 23 HISTORY OF THE FAN ^Elian {Nat. An., xi. 8) affirms that at the festival of Apollo in the island of Leucas, an ox was sacrificed ; the flies, glutted with the blood, gave no further trouble. The same author states that the flies of Pisa (Olympia) were more virtuous, because they did their duty, not for a consideration, but out of pure regard for the god.1 Scaliger derives the name of Beel-zebub, the false god, from Baalim- Zebabim, which signifies lord of sacrifices. This deity was worshipped during the time of our Saviour, who is accused by the Pharisees of casting out devils by Beel-zebub, the prince of the devils. So Holman Hunt, in his picture of the finding of the Saviour in the Temple, with fine perception, places a fly-whisk in the hand of a child.2 A child is here propounding to his elders a purer and loftier system of ethics than had heretofore been dreamed of; a child, likewise, banishes the servants of Belial. With the Jewish writers of the Middle Ages the worship of Baal frequently signified the practising of the rites of the Christian religion ; thus Rabbi Joseph Ben Meir in his Chronicles states that Clovis forsook his God and worshipped Baal, and that a high place was built at Paris for Baal Dionysius, i.e. the Cathedral of St. Denis.3 The Assyrians employed the tall standard and sceptral fans in a precisely similar way to the Egyptians. In the restoration of the palace of Sargon (Khorsabad), compiled by Felix Thomas, given by Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, vol. ii. p. 24, two enormous frond standards are placed at the entrance to the Harem Court, these being circular, formed of palm fronds in bronze gilt. ' In India, as in Japan,' to quote again Sir George Birdwood, 'the standard is often blazoned with some totemistic, symbolical, or heraldic device, and it was probably so blazoned in Assyria, for from Assyria the practice 1 Pausanias, Frazer, vol. iii. 558. 2 ' The fly-whisk in the picture is introduced because flies were held to be creatures of Beel-zebub, the god of flies, and therefore to be driven away.' (Letter of Mr. W. Holman Hunt to the author.) 3 National Encyclopaedia. 24 FANS OF THE ANCIENTS spread to Greece and Rome of using such devices on both standards and shields. Later this ritual was revived by the Saracens, and was spread over mediaeval Europe by the Crusaders returning from the Holy Land.' The Assyrian disc-standards were probably of brass or other metal, fixed to the inside of the chariot. Two devices appear on the monu- ments— the Divine Archer standing on a bull, and two bulls running in opposite directions. These were enclosed in a circle at the end of a long staff ornamented with streamers and tassels.1 The Assyrians employed the primitive plaited fan, used in Egypt, both crescent-shaped, square, and triangular. On a relief from Nimroud, in the British Museum, in a circular arrangement divided into four compartments, representing the interior of a castle with towers and battlements, a eunuch is waving in his right hand, over a stand on which are vases and bowls, a square, flag-shaped fan, certainly of the plaited variety ; in the left hand is what appears to be a fly-whisk. On a silver dish in the Strogonoff collection illustrated in Orientalische Teppiche, Alois Riegl, a Sassanian monarch is seated, cross-legged, holding a tazza, and attended by two servitors, one of whom waves a plaited flag- fan of oblong shape. The dish, which bears strong traces of Indian influence, is probably of the period of Varannes n., a.d. 273-277. The swinging-fan, suspended from the ceiling, and operated by pulling a cord, is an ancient device for cooling the air of rooms. The testimony of an Assyrian bas-relief from Nineveh indicates its use at the period to which these sculptures belong — seventh to tenth century B.C. Wicquefort, in his translation of the embassy of Garcias de Figueron, gives the name of fan to a kind of chimney or ventiduct, in use among the Persians, to furnish air and wind into their houses, without which the heat would be insupportable.2 1 Layard, Nineveh. " Chambers's Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. D 25 HISTORY OF THE FAN A variant of this device for ventilating rooms is recorded in Chinese annals. Under the Han dynasty, B.C. 205 - a. d. 25, a skilful workman at Chang — and named Ting Huan — made a fan of seven large wheels 10 feet in diameter, the whole turned by a single man. The luxurious Guez de Balzac, in the twentieth letter, written from Rome in 1621, to the Cardinal de la Villette, with his customary extrava- gant hyperbole, describes his method of guarding against the heat during the broiling month of July — ' Four servants constantly fan my apartments ; they raise wind enough to make a tempestuous sea! FROM A BAS-RELIEF. (Nimroud.) 26 i 1 S'S 1 s " ■ft FANS OF THE ANCIENTS FANS OF THE ANCIENTS— Continued GREECE AND ROME IN Greece, as in Egypt, the fan had a sacred as well as a secular use. M. Uzanne refers to the fan of feathers which those discreet and irreproachable ladies, the Vestals, made use of to fan the flame of their sacrifices, and, rather roguishly, seizes the idea of fan- ning the flame to suggest that of inward flames kindled by the arrows of the little god Cupid, in place of the chaste ardours of the sacred mysteries. The fans of the priests of Isis, when Isis was a Grecian divinity, were formed of the wings of a bird, attached to the end of a long wand, and thus made to resemble the caduceus of Mercury. The Greeks received the fan from Egypt and Assyria through the Phoenicians, who were the traders between the east and the west. In the sarcophagus of Amanthus (Cyprio - Phoenician), representing a train of horsemen, footmen, and chariots, the horses' heads are adorned with a pleated fan crest, similar to that which was used by the Persians ; the figure in the first biga carries a parasol. Thus Perrot and Chipiez in their description of this monument : ' The parasol which shades the head of the great person in the first biga is the symbol of Asiatic royalty : the fan-shaped plume which rises above the heads of all the chariot horses, is an ornament that one sees in the same position in Assyria and Lycia, when the sculptor desires to represent horses magnificently caparisoned.' 27 HISTORY OF THE FAN This remarkable example is of the highest interest as showing that the pleated form — in this instance, doubtless, rigid, and fixed to a short handle, also seen in both Egyptian and Assyrian monuments — has been employed from a very remote period.1 The earliest Greek fans were, doubtless, branches of the myrtle, acacia, the triple leaves of the Oriental plantain, and also the leaves of the lotus, which latter, together with the myrtle, were consecrated to Venus, were symbols of the dolce far niente, and therefore peculiarly appropriate to this instrument of reposeful ease. The myrtle bough was also used by the Romans, as we learn from Martial, iii. 82, serving at the same time as fan and fly-flap — ' Et aestuanti tenue ventilat frigus Supina prasino concubina flabello ; Fugatque muscas myrtea puer virga.' The single leaf or heart-shaped fan occurs constantly in Greek terra- cottas ; a number of examples are to be seen in the British and other Museums. In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a charming little 1 See page 109. 28 3 1 *5 k c FANS OF THE ANCIENTS winged Amor, draped, tripping gaily along, hiding his face behind a fan of this shape. Blondel refers to a female figure in the Louvre, seated at a feast, holding a leaf-fan ; also in a fresco at Pompeii a figure is seen holding a fan which this author mistakes for that of a different shape, but which is really a perspective view of the plantain-leaf. We see the triform leaf- fan in the hands of a Tanagra figure in the collection of Louis Fould, illustrated in the Gazette des Beaux- Arts for i860; this, as well as a number of Tanagra figures, evidently representing priestesses of Venus. It is impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy the material and construction of these fans : in some instances they are evidently stretched on a frame, and adorned with ornament either painted or embroidered ; occasionally, also, the decorative motif is that of the natural veining of the leaf; the handles being usually very short, in many cases scarcely visible. The slight vestiges of colour remaining on these statuettes must in no instance be taken as suggesting the colouring of the original fans. The business of the Tanagra sculptor was to make a statuette and not a portrait of any particular fan ; the colouring of the fan of the statuette would therefore be determined by the general colour scheme of which it formed a part. The circular fan of peacocks' feathers appears as early as the fifth century B.C., and even at this date had already been used in Asia Minor. References to the feather-fan are of constant occurrence in the writings of Greek authors. A slave in the Orestes of Euripides exclaims : ' After the Phrygian fashion I chanced with the close circle of feathers to be fanning the gale, that sported in the ringlets of Helen.' Instances of the feather-fan are common on Greek vases, — on the Campanian Hydra (F. 212), British Museum, the shape in this instance being that of the reversed heart. In the fourth vase room, on an oil-flask, with Aphrodite seated in the lap of Adonis, a figure appears holding a very large fan, but similar in shape to the first mentioned ; and on the Apulian 29 HISTORY OF THE FAN Hydra, F. 352, a fan appears which is evidently a conventional representa- tion of the peacock feather-fan. The long-handled fan was also adopted by the Greeks, these being waved by servants or attendants, as in Egypt. The Etruscans, amongst whom the luxury of the fan is early seen, and who transmitted it later to the Romans, used the peacock feathers, of different lengths, in a semicircle : such a fan appears on a large vase in the Louvre. On an Etruscan crater, re- presenting Heracles strangling the serpents, surrounded by the greater gods, a fan of plain feathers is held in the hand of one of the attend- ants. On a sarcophagus at Vulci, found in the winter of 1845-6, a female figure appears waving a large fan, /5ims, identical in shape with fans used in India at the present day. In the Grotta del Sole e della Luna (tomb of the Sun and Moon) at Vulci, discovered in 1830, one of the ceilings has a singular fan-pattern, given in Mon. Ined. Inst., i. tav. xli., the counterpart of which is found in two tombs at Cervetri, whence we may conclude it was no uncommon decoration in Etruscan houses.1 In the Museo Gregorio, Rome, are half-a-dozen handles of fans, with holes for threads or wire, to tie in feathers or leaves. ' The fashion of the fan,' says M. de Linas,2 ' was probably introduced into Italy in the sixth century B.C. We learn from Dionysius of Halicar- nassus, that Aristodemus, tyrant of Cumae, and ally of Porsenna, corrupted FROM AN APULIAN HYDRA. (British Museum.) 1 Dennis, Cities ami Cemeteries of Etruria. Revue de /'Art Chrtticn% 1883. 30 h s ■3 R FANS OF THE ANCIENTS the youths of this town by making them effeminate buffoons, accompanied by followers who carried the nabellum and umbrella.' The fan, although perhaps in less constant use by the Romans, was still an article of very general employment. In the Eunuchus of Terence we are introduced to a pretty scene in which the fan plays an important part. Chaerea is relating to Antipho his good fortune with the fair Thais : Chaerea. While I was revolving these things in my mind, the virgin meanwhile was called away to bathe ; she goes, bathes, and returns, after which they laid her on a couch ; I stand waiting to see if they had any orders for me. At last, one came up and said — ' Here, Dorus, take this fan, and, while we are bathing, fan her thus. When we have done you may bathe too, if you have a mind.' I take it very demurely. Antipho. I could have then wished to see that impudent face of thine, and the awkward figure so great a booby must make holding a fan. Chaerea. Scarce had she done speaking, when in a moment they all hurried out of the room, and ran to the bath in a noisy manner, as is usual when masters are absent. Meantime, the virgin falls asleep. I steal a private glance thus, with the corner of my eye, through the fan ; at the same time look round every- where, to see if the coast was quite clear. . . . The Romans employed the fly-flap {muscarium) formed of peacocks' feathers, which was often provided with a long handle, so that the fan could be waved by a servant (jlabellifer), who protected his mistress from the insects during sleep. Plautus, Trinummus, n. i., refers to these flabilliferae, but in this instance the term is obviously applied to female fan-bearers. Propertius, n. xxiv. u, speaks of flabella of the tail feathers of the peacock. The peacock fly-flap is also referred to by Martial, xiv. 67 : ' What, from thy food, repels profaning flies, Strutted, a gorgeous train, with Gemmy eyes.' ' Lambere quae turpes prohibet tua prandia muscas, Alitis eximiae cauda superba fuit.' 31 HISTORY OF THE FAN The same author, in. lxxii. io-i i, says of Zoilus that when overcome by the heat, a pleasant coolness is wafted about him with a leek-green flabellum. The Romans also adopted the tail of the yak, but this last, which appears to have been imported from India, was not so commonly used as the tabellae, a species of fan of square or circular shape, formed of precious wood or very finely cut ivory, referred to by Ovid in the third book of his A mores. ' Wouldst thou,' he exclaims, ' have an agreeable zephyr to refresh thy face? This tablet agitated by my hand will give you this pleasure.' Those also were the fans the young Roman exquisites carried when accompanying their mistresses along the Via Sacra, fanning them gallantly, representations of which appear on vases in the Louvre.1 Propertius, also, in the fourth book of his Elegies, represents Hercules as seated at the feet of Omphale, fan in hand. 1 In a wall-painting of a sacrifice, Rome (Vatican), given by George Buss, Der Ftichcr, a circular fan-tablet is seen. FROM AN ETRUSCAN VASE. (British Museum.) 1 I k * to p CHAPTER III FANS OF THE FAR EAST INDIA IT is difficult for the Western mind to realise the degree of importance assumed by the fan, the fly-flap, and the umbrella, in the countries of the Far East, especially India ; these objects being regarded with an affection almost, indeed actually, amounting to rever- ence. Its primal cause is to be found in the overpowering insistence of the sun's rays, and the sense of grateful relief afforded by shade and disturbance of the air. To dis- cover its origin we must look back, beyond the age of legendary lore, to actual mythology, when we find representations of the Puranic snake gods of India with the sacred umbrella over their heads, attended by Cherubim waving the fan and the fly-flap. Similarly we find the sacred five- or seven-headed cobra itself assuming the office of sunshade, uprearing its hood to form a canopy for Buddha or for the Hindoo gods. In the Mahdbh&rata, the ancient epic of Hindostan, we have a description of the death of the monarch Pandou, in which great crowds assemble at the bier to do homage to the dead, bringing offerings of e 33 HISTORY OF THE FAN fly-flaps and white umbrellas, the latter having each a hundred ribs of pure gold, the donors thereby ensuring for themselves a place in Paradise. In the same epic, the poet represents the sacred Kama, in the midst of the acclamations of victory, seated majestically upon his throne, beneath the emblems of the umbrella, the fan, and the fly-flap; these being regarded as the most solemn symbols of state throughout the East. Thus, the title of the King of Burmah is ' Lord of the twenty-four umbrellas,' this being the number always borne before the Emperor of China upon every state occasion, and accompanying him even to the hunting-field.1 The connection between this umbrella-reverence and primitive tree- worship is abundantly established, both having their origin in climatic conditions. On the Sanchi Tope is figured the sacred flowering Sal tree (beneath which Gautama Buddha died at Kasia), surmounted by two Chhatras, these, together with the tree, being adorned with garlands. Again, on the Great Tope at Buddha Gaya, B.C. 250, erected in front of the sacred Bo tree (Ficus religiosd), beneath which Gautama attained to the Buddhahood, are umbrellas hung with garlands. Also in a Thibetan picture of the death of Gautama given in Dr. Waddell's Buddhism of Thibet, we see a garlanded and festooned umbrella in the centre over Buddha, with attendants waving fly-flaps, and on the right a large standard fan. So deeply rooted, indeed, is the reverence for the umbrella, and so completely in the minds of the populace are these objects identified with regal power, that, upon the occasion of the visit of the Prince of Wales (King Edward vn.) to India, it was deemed necessary for his Royal 1 This also is the number lining the shed in which the King of Dahomey holds his Court, the outer ones, white, those in the centre, marking the spot occupied by his Majesty, displaying the brightest hues. 34 FANS OF THE FAR EAST Highness to appear beneath a golden umbrella on an elephant in order that his sovereign dignity might be demonstrated. In the manuscript of Nieder Muenster of Ratisbon, now in the library at Munich, we find a curious blending of the tree and umbrella form, introduced as accessories in representations of the four evangelists, doubtless merely intended as conventional floral forms, but evidently the work of some monkish illuminator who had become influenced by Oriental mythology. In Ratisbon, also, is an illumination of Christ bearing the cross, to one arm of which is attached a half-closed umbrella, reproduced in Curiositds Mystdrienses. ' Le pommeau,' says the chronicler, ' est orne" de ce que les Romains nomment Ombrellino (petit dais en parasol). S'il s'agissait a coup stir de ce baldaquin (qui est le propre de certains digni- taires) nous pourrions rappeler que ce mot figurait deja dans l'^tiquette imperiale avant Constantin.'1 On Attic and other Greek vases of the third and fourth century B.C., to quote Sir George Birdwood, it is often very difficult to distinguish the fan from the umbrella. 'Where it is distinctly an umbrella, it is either of the peaked Assyrian form, or of the dome- (' rondel ' of Valentijin, etc., and 'arundels' of Fryer) topped Indian form (chhatra); and when it is distinctly a fan, it is usually of the Indian type, determined by the fan palm frond and the peacock feather, and rarely of the Egyptian type determined by the date-palm and the ostrich feather.' In the early Persian bas-reliefs, says Chardin in his Voyages, the kings of Persia are frequently represented in the act of mounting on horseback surrounded by beautiful slaves ; the duty of one being that of holding an umbrella over the head of the monarch. This, not only for the purpose of protecting the sovereign from the rays of the sun, but also to demonstrate his absolute right of life and death over both prisoners and subjects. 1 C. F. Gordon-Cumming, 'Pagodas, Aureoles, and Umbrellas,' English Illustrated Magazine, 1888. 35 HISTORY OF THE FAN Umbrellas formed an important feature in the Greek Bacchic pro- cessions. Aristophanes refers to white umbrellas and baskets, signifying pomp and joy, as being intended to recall to men the acts of Ceres and Proserpine, and constantly borne by virgins at all religious ceremonials. In a miniature in the Royal Library at Paris, of Sivaji on the march, a sayiban or sun-fan is seen, having an arrangement of drapery in form of a curtain or valance.1 Here we discover a point of contact between the fan and the umbrella, although it is probable that in this instance its use as a shade-giving instrument had not developed. A much closer form-connection, however, between fan and umbrella is seen in the simple leaf section of the Palmyra palm, cut level at the top, used by the natives in most parts of India. This assumes exactly the shape of the pleated fan, the pleating formed by Nature's deft hands. The large Cingalese umbrella used by headsmen and at weddings is of the same shape, made of the young leaves of the talipot palm, often richly decorated with plaited patterns in various colours, and with mica inlay. Of similar form, also, is the sacred processional parasol of the Indian Mussulmans (Shia sect) and the Hindus. The fan, therefore, must be considered as part of a continuous de- velopment from the umbrella symbol of might and power, employed equally in the East as in the West, and the infinitude of military and processional fan-like standards and sceptral fans, to the hand-fan and fly-whisk. We discover a direct affinity between the hissing of the wind 1 In the Ayin Akbari, or Institutes of the Emperor Akbar, by Abdul Fazl, Akbar's great minister, the following enumeration is given of the ensigns of state ' which wise monarchs consider as marks of divine favour ' : — - The Aurung or throne, the Chuttur or umbrella, the Sayiban or sun-fan, and the Kowkebah or stars in gold and other metals which are hung up in front of the palace ; and these four ensigns are used only by kings. The Alum, the Chuttertowk, and the Tementowk, all varieties of standards of the highest dignity, appropriated solely by the king and his military officers of the highest rank. — Birdwood, Industrial Arts of India. 36 FANS OF THE FAR EAST through the open metal mouth and silken bag of the Roman Dragon standard, and the beating of the wings of the Norse Raven, used for a similar purpose ; between the Assyrian disc standards with the divine archer standing on the sacred bull, and the cruciferal discs employed at a more recent date in Christian Church ceremonial ; between the chauri waved over the head of Krishna, and the wafting of divine influence by the angelic attendants upon the Saviour in early Christian missal-painting. The alums or allums used in the Moharram procession in India are analogous to the standards used by the Greeks and Romans, and those figured on the gates of the Sanchi Tope, consisting not only of flags and banners, but of all sorts of devices in metal, raised on the top of a long staff and carried to battle.1 The Cingalese Sesata, a ceremonial fan for royal and religious use, or for attendance upon great personages, consists of an em- broidered cloth disc, or talipot leaf, decorated with images of the sun, moon, etc., with mica and other materials introduced, mounted on a lacquered staff. Tenants of the first rank attend the Disvata (lord chief) on journeys, convey his orders, carrying the great banner, state umbrella, and Sesata.2 A smaller disc-fan, the disc covered with crimson velvet, the handle about fifteen inches long, of carved ivory, richly inlaid, occurs in the Louvre. 1 Hon. Wilbraham Egerton, Handbook of Indian Arms. - Coomaraswarmy, Mediozval Sinhalese Art. 37 I CINGALESE SESATA (Made of the leaf of the talipot palm, enriched with plates of mica, the handle lacquered wood; length, including handle, 7 feet.) HISTORY OF THE FAN The royal standard, banner, or ensign, employed in India, composed of peacocks' feathers, is illustrated in a MS. copy of the Akbar-Namah (c. 1597), the form being circular, and also that of a somewhat elongated semicircle. The fly-flap, chowr, chowrie, chourie, chaurie, is next in dignity to the umbrella, and was in the first instance devoted to the service of the gods. On a bas-relief of the pagoda of Elephanta, described by the Orientalist Langl^s in his History of Hindostan, a servant is seen behind Brahma and Indra holding in each hand chauries or fly-whisks. In the India Museum is a charming little chaurie with silver handle and ribbons of silver gauze tipped with red silk, used by Jains to drive away insects from their idol without destroying them. Chauries are formed of various materials — of ivory, the strips of which are sometimes cut to incredible fineness for such a substance ; in these cases the handles are formed of the same material, richly carved — of the bushy tail of the Himalayan yak, both black and white, the handles either of metal, ivory, or wood — of sandalwood, also cut into the finest possible strips, the handles richly carved ; the waving of these chauries emitting a fine fragrance — of the stripped quills of the larger birds, more generally the peacock — of horse-hair and the various grasses. The handles were often formed of the horns of various animals ; an example occurs in the Horniman Museum, in which instance it is the antelope. The chaurie from the tail of the yak was in ancient India fixed upon a gold or ornamented shaft between the ears of the war-horse, like the plume of the war-horse of chivalry ; the banner or banneret, with the 38 FLY-WHISK (From a painting on talc. Madras. Nineteenth century.) 3 Q * ^ KZ^A t Q 1 Si FANS OF THE FAR EAST device of the chief, rose at the back of the car. ' The waving chaurie on the steed's broad brow points backwards, motionless as a picture.' ' This, it will be seen, is in strict conformity to the usage of the ancient Egyptians, who employed the tall fan emblem in a precisely similar way ; these proud plumes serving a double purpose — an orna- mental, and, in the case of Egypt, even an heraldic purpose, and also the purely utilitarian one of affording the animal some relief from fly pests. The peacock has ever been regarded as a sacred bird, both by the peoples of the East and the West. The Greek fable of Argus the hundred-eyed, the sleepless guardian of Io, serves to connect the idea of extreme vigilance with that of true kingship, i.e. the universal preserver and father of the people. The peacock therefore presented a double sig- nificance to the minds of the Hindu peoples ; it expressed the vigilance of kingship together with its magnificence. The peacock feather emblem of royalty is the sign or insignia of the king's high office, and the principal evidence of his sovereignty : wherever a king appears ^^Wfifjtoj he is accompanied by an attendant bearing this emblem, \0^Hm which appears in all pictorial or other representations of Wj^^ royalty. y0ftXm It was, doubtless, in the first instance a fly-flap, and is fS[ either composed entirely of feathers, or, it consists of a bunch fc^d of feathers enclosed two-thirds of the distance in a silver jS casing, usually ornamented with an imbricated pattern ; the EW handle also of silver. Several examples of this object appear l] in the India Museum, and numberless representations occur emblem of ROYALTY in sculpture, illumination, embroidery, etc. (From™ illumination of 1 a Court reception by The poet Valmiki tells of the sumptuous sceptre, studded *<^°<°^ with jewels, prepared for the sacrifices to Rama — a magnificent fan with a radiant garland resembling the full moon in the clear night sky. 1 Hindu Theatre. 39 HISTORY OF THE FAN The word punkha, or pankha, from pankh, a feather, a bird, is a generic term applied in India to all fans, pankhi meaning a small fan. This derivation serves as an indication of the early use of the plumed fan in India, which divides honours with the palm-leaf fan in point of antiquity, and doubtless also as suggesting a similarity between the beating of a bird's wings and the movement of the fan. The earliest plumed fans probably consisted of a pair of complete wings set shoulder to shoulder, resembling the caduceus of Mercury, which was regarded as a symbol of happiness, peace, and concord, the wings expressing diligence. Feather-fans assume all manner of shapes, as the large round banner- fans already referred to ; the familiar crescent-like form with a short 0. handle set horizontally at its base ; and the various hand-screens, these either composed entirely of pea- _ %f cocks' feathers, the breast and if" neck feathers forming a pattern in the centre, with a border of tail feathers ; or, the centre formed of plaited pith and cane of various colours, beetles' wings, etc., with the border again of feathers ; the handles being of cane or wood, or of wood covered with cane strippings or other material. In Persia and Arabia, from the first centuries of our era, fans were made of ostrich feathers, many being ornamented with that form of in- scription which is such a leading feature of the decorative art of these countries. The crescent-shaped hand-fan also dates from a very early period. In its primitive form, it is seen in the painted decoration of the Bud- 40 ROYAL STANDARDS (From a MS. copy of the Akbar-Namah. Sixteenth century.) L<uyc /{and Fan of 'Sandalwood, Indian.. J '8 t>KCent. f- jM^Hurioe-rjird J^oOe-TL . FANS OF THE FAR EAST H HAND-FAN (From the cave paintings at Ajanta.) dhist cave-temples of Ajanta (first century B.C. to eighth century A.D.), the example given being probably ornamented with strips or panels of mica, the constructional portion of cane or pith. A variant of this form, still more simple in its construction, is seen in one of the sculptured roundels of the Buddhist tope at Amaravati, Southern India, circa second century a.d. ; an attendant upon a great personage waves a circular fan, having the handle stretched across the face, with a circular opening near the lower edge to enable the handle to be gripped. All the fore- going types obtain at the present day, and are as modern as they are ancient. The flag form of fan is, if possible, a still more remarkable instance of the persistence of certain decorative motifs throughout long periods of the world's history. This type, again, is in use at the present day — the page of examples illustrated are of the mid-nineteenth century — this identical form appears in the wall-paintings at Ajanta ; : it is also seen in Egyptian and Assyrian sculptured reliefs ; it was employed by the Copts from the third to the sixth century, and earlier in Arabia ; it was in general use in Italy during the period of the Renaissance. There can be no possibility of doubt that this form of fan was common to the whole of the East and to a greater portion of the West, and has endured throughout the centuries. PLAITED GRASS-FAN (From the Amaravati Tope.) These fans are of two kinds — rigid and flexible ; in <F' FLAG-FAN rom the cave paintings ::t Ajanta.) 1 In the painting supposed to represent an Iranian Embassy of Khosru II. of Persia to Pulikesi II., both flag-fan, long-handled pankha, and fly-flap appear. F 41 HISTORY OF THE FAN both instances they are invariably plaited, the material being stripped palm, bamboo, ivory, peacock quills, etc. The rigid variety is often placed loose in the handle, to allow of its being swung round and round like a policeman's rattle. See illustration opposite. The hatchet or halberd shape is a development of the flag form, and varies from the simple blade to that of a highly ornamental shape. The material is silk, velvet, cloth or other tissue, often richly embroidered with gold and silver thread, spangles, beetles' wings, etc., with a fringe of either silver tinsel or peacocks' feathers ; the handles being of wood, cane, or silver. These are at present largely made at Delhi. Occasionally the fan is entirely formed of threaded glass beads of various colours forming a pattern upon a wire framework, with a fringe of tinsel, the handle also overlaid with beads. The primitive palm-fan occurs on the oldest Hindostani bas-reliefs, and is described by the poets. This primeval fan still forms part of the attire of certain Buddhist priests in Siam, and from it they take their name of ' Talapoins ' ; the fan's name being ' talapat,' or 'palm-tree-leaf in the Siamese language. This form (the reversed heart) is common to both the smaller hand-fans and the larger ceremonial and processional fans. The natural palm-leaf 42 Flaj Fans, sbLtpcUm, <H6am~6oo. f9^i!ent. Headed Fan,, £. Paim-Lurf ran- ^utk-rrUca-ln^erti^u!, FANS OF THE FAR EAST is employed, trimmed to the required shape, and used either plain, or painted in brilliant colours, or forming a base for a covering of em- broidery, feathers or stuffs, as in the example from Moorshedabad (illustrated), which is of velvet, embroidered with silver. The lateral form, in which the leaf is set sidewise on the stem, follows the same principle of decorative development. It is used plain, painted, inlaid with talc as in the example illustrated, is embroidered with silk, spangles, beetles' wings, etc. ; it also supplies the shape or decorative motif for fans of a different material, as in the instance of the four long - handled fans, forming portion of the Burmese regalia, obtained from Mandalay in 1885, examples of a barbaric splendour only to be found in the gorgeous East. These are of gold, jewelled with rubies and the ' nan-ratan ' or nine stone, the handles overlaid with gold and also jewelled. Amongst fans formed of the more precious materials is a disc-shaped fan of gold, set with cabochon sapphires, an offering dedicated by Klrti Sri to the 'Tooth relic.'1 Figured in Medieval Sinhalese Art, A. K. Coom- araswarmy. In the collection of the Baroness Salomon de Rothschild at Paris is a fan of jade, richly studded with jewels. FAN OF GOLD (Forming portion of the Burmese Regalia. India Museum.) 1 The Tooth relic of Buddha, brought by a Brahman princess from Kalinga in A.D. 313, and since rendered the highest honours. 43 HISTORY OF THE FAN Fans are also made of the sweet-scented Khaskhas root {Andropogon muricatus), and as these are generally used after being wetted, they impart to the air a cool fragrance ; they are often highly ornamented with gold and silver spangles, gold thread, tinsel, beetles' wings, etc., and occasionally provided with ivory handles. A pretty example occurs at Kew, where there is an excellent collection of fans made of the various vegetable sub- stances. Fans of talc, decorated with exquisite illumination, were made at Tanjore during the eighteenth century. Specimens occur in the India Museum, South Kensington. PORTION OF AN EMBROIDERED MUSLIN NAPKIN. (Chamba. Nineteenth century.) Representations of the fan are of constant occurrence in Indian work, both illumination, embroidery, sculpture, and other material. On a curiously primitive embroidered napkin from Chamba, we are introduced to the worship of a Hindu deity — a king and queen are kneeling under a palm-tree, the god Ganesh in the distance with flag-fan ; an attendant bears the peacock feather emblem of royalty, a second attendant waves a large heart-shaped fan. On a small mat or pad of enamelled leather (Hyderabad, nineteenth century), we see a whimsical combination of Krishna and his damsels forming the similitude of an elephant, the umbrella, pankha, and two fly-flappers being in evidence. 44 FANS OF THE FAR EAST A beautiful illumination from a MS. copy of the Akbar-Namah, above quoted, shows a prince seated upon his throne in the act of receiving offerings ; an attendant waves a fly-flap behind the throne, a second attendant bears one of the large pankhas beautifully embroidered in gold and colours. We are also in another illumination introduced to a beautiful flowered parterre, in which a Mongol princess is seated before a rippling fountain ; attendants wait upon her with fruits, vases containing unguents, spices, etc. ; behind, a female attendant waves the fly-flap. In the decoration of the entrance gate of the temple at Ajmir, a prince appears in a howdah on the back of an elephant, an attendant sits behind waving a fly-flap, a second flabellifer is seated on the head of the animal ; the prince himself holds a small fan in his hand, an attendant on foot bears the pankha, and another the insignia of royalty. Fair and delicate though these creations of Eastern ingenuity may be, the genius of Oriental imagery and fancy has discovered for us a still more delicate and effective instrument — a Sanskrit poet recounts a grace- ful fable of a princess of extreme beauty, who, although constantly attending and fanning the divine fire with a view to increasing the pros- perity of her father, never succeeded in producing a flame save by the breath of her charming lips. 45 HISTORY OF THE FAN FANS OF THE FAR EAST— Continued CHINA CHINESE authorities are at variance concerning the in- vention of the fan, which has been attributed to the Emperor Hsien Yuan, b.c. 2697 ; to the Emperor Shun, B.C. 2255, and to the first ruler of the Chou dynasty, B.C. 1 122. According to a Chinese legend, it had its origin at the Feast of Lanterns, where, on an occasion when the heat became particularly oppressive, the beautiful daughter of a mandarin took off her mask, and agitated it so as to fan the air into a gentle breeze ; the rest of the fair revellers were so much struck with the grace of the motion that they one and all let fall their masks and followed the example of the mandarin's daughter. The earliest fans were of the dyed feathers of various birds, and those of the peacock. We have an account of a present of two fans of feathers of ' tsio rouge,' offered to the Emperor Tchao-wang of the Chou dynasty, b.c. 1052, by the King of Thou-sieou, and it is affirmed in the ' Tchdou-li ' that one of the chariots of the empress carried a feather-fan for the purpose of keeping the wheels free from dust. The poet Thou-fou, in the ' Song of Autumn,' refers to fans of pheasants' feathers as in royal use. The Emperor Kao-Tsong, of the Chang dynasty, 1323- 1266 B.C., having heard the cry of the pheasant, an omen of good luck, resolved thenceforth to use only fans composed of the tail feathers of this bird. 46 CIRCULAR FAN 'Like the Moon' borne by the guard of an Imperial concubine. t £ tf \ ^1 1 - ■Si j - FANS OF THE FAR EAST These have continued in the service of royalty to a late period. A wing-shaped example, set laterally in a red lacquered handle, appearing in the hand of an attendant, in a fine painted roll, by Ch' in Ying of the Ming dynasty, illustrating the occupations of Court ladies, the larger feathers numbering seven, this being the sacred number composing the fan, which is the attribute of Chung-li Ch'uan, one of the eight Taoist Immortals, the seven broad feathers corresponding to the constellation of seven stars on the left of the moon (Great Bear), the seat in the Taoist heavens of their supreme deity, Shang Ti, round whom all the other star gods circulate in homage. This fan is illustrated on the large lacquered screen at the Victoria and Albert Museum, representing the Taoist Genii from a painted roll OF MING DYNASTY worshipping the god of Longevity, and (»*i*ii— «o constantly figures in pictorial and other representa- tions. Similar fans with several rows of pointed feathers appear in painted and decorative work ; a curious example being seen in a large drawing from Tonkin (Louvre). The outer row of feathers, white and pale blue ; the second, yellow ; the third, those of the pea- cock; the body of the fan, green, red, white, and blue. In the lacquered screen above referred to, a large fan of this character is waved over the head of one of the devotees riding aloft on a cloud, wending his way towards the mountain paradise, the home of the God. The feather-fan is one of the chief attributes of Hsi Wang Mu, the 47 FAN.\OF HSI WANG MU (From a Japanese painting* British Museum.) HISTORY OF THE FAN famed Queen of the Genii (Royal Mother of the West), whose dwelling was a mountain palace in Central Asia, where she held Court with her fairy legions and received the great Taoist Rishis and certain favoured mortals, and whose amours with the Han Emperor Wu Ti have given much occupation for both author and artist.1 Her fan is borne by one of her four handmaidens, who, like the D€va Kings of Mount Sumeru, are severally related to the four points of the compass. It assumes various shapes, as that of a wing, in the painting by a pupil of Itcho riu of the Japanese popular school, British Museum, 1722; a bunch of long pointed plumes set in a bamboo handle, in the painting (Chinese School of Japan, British Museum, 778), in which a young girl in deer-skin, standing beneath the sacred peach-tree of the Immortals, offers the fruit to the goddess who, with her attendant bearing the fan, appears upon a cloud above the waves. The queen is also represented with the large pear-shaped screen, as in the painting of the same school, British Museum, 1022, the screen decorated with the sun, moon, and clouds. In the painting previously referred to (No. 1722), the goddess herself holds a smaller pear-shaped screen. Each of the 'fore-mentioned paintings are Japanese, but the fan forms are, unquestionably, taken from older Chinese originals. The earliest illustrations, however, of this personage and her fan, 1 Anderson, B.Af. Catalogue, p. t2I. 48 WHITE PLUMED FAN OF HSI WANG MU (From a painting of the Chinese School of Japan. British Museum.) 1 j ■I FANS OF THE FAR EAST and probably the oldest representations of fans in Chinese art, are those of the sculptures of the Han dynasty, b.c. 206 — a.d. 25. In these, Hsi-wang Mu, wearing a coroneted hat, is attended by ladies carrying cup, mirror, and fan. On the same relief the Emperor Mu Wang of the Chou dynasty, B.C. 1001, is attended by a servitor with fan and towel or handkerchief. In the frieze forming the lower part of the relief, we see the ' Chariot of the Sage ' preceded by two men on foot, with staves and fans. PEAR-SHAPED SCREENS (Ftom paintings in the British Museum.) On another of these reliefs, representing the discovery of one of the sacred bronze tripods, the ancient palladia of the kingdom, the two com- missioners deputed by the Emperor to superintend its recovery from the river are attended by servitors bearing fans. These are the small hand- screens (pien-mien) described by M. Rondot as being larger in the upper part, their shape approaching that of a reversed trapezium with the angles rounded off. g 49 HISTORY OF THE FAN This same author refers to four screens of white jade (regarded by the Chinese as the most precious of precious stones), the handles of an odoriferous amber, that were offered by the Emperor Chun-Hi of the Southern Sung dynasty, 1174-1190, to his Empress. At this time the screens were ornamented with incrustation and inscription, which was much esteemed, and this author quotes a curious passage from the Annals 0/ the Thsi to the effect that Wang-sun-pen, of Kin-ling, represented in the space of a few inches a perspective view of rivers, mountains, valleys, and plains, stretching over a thousand miles of land. These screen pictures are referred to in the Kit yii foufiu, an illustrated catalogue of ancient jade, in one hundred books, compiled in 11 76 by an imperial commission headed by Lung Ta-Yuan, President of the Board of Rites. The small hand-screens assume a variety of forms — circular, pear- shaped, heart-shaped, etc., and are made of various materials, as — (1) The natural palm leaf, seen in the Chinese painting, British Museum, 37. (2) The palm leaf cut to various shapes, with a bamboo handle running up the middle, as in the Japanese example given on page 61. (3) Of bamboo ; from Chinese records we learn that on the fifth day of the fifth month of the year corresponding to our 219, the Emperor presented to the members of the Imperial Academy a fan of bamboo, carved and painted blue. There is also a record of an existing fan of oblong form, made of bamboo leaf, ornamented with bulrushes, an inscription on the field of the fan. This dates from the sixth century a.d. (4) Of the turtle shell : the two portions held together with metal plates, with a wooden or other handle, examples of which occur in the Musde Guimet, Paris. (5) Of silk stretched upon a frame, with painted or other decoration, as in the two charming examples illustrated from the collection of Mr. W. Crewdson. Both front and reverse are given : the latter decorated in that system of feather-work much affected by the Chinese, and in which they display great skill. The feathers are usually the turquoise tinted plumes of the kingfisher : in the present 50 i i 1 i i «S s ° FANS OF THE FAR EAST instance the design is alternated by an imbrication of peacocks' feathers. The handles are of carved ivory. There are also the cockade screens, usually of ivory or sandal- wood. Representations of the earlier large ceremonial banner screens appear on a carved pedestal of a Buddhist image, Northern Wei dynasty, a.d. 524 ; these are oval in form, and are seen in both sculptured and painted representations down to recent times. In the Musde Guimet in Paris is a large fan of red lacquer framework (reversed heart shape) enclosing a series of metal ribs through which the wind plays ; in the centre are painted dragons. Among the painted representations in the India Museum, of objects from the Summer Palace at Pekin, is a circular screen, ' like the moon,' borne by the guard of an imperial concubine. See illustration, p. 46. A favourite device for the decoration of these larger screens is that of the fabled Phoenix, the Ho bird of the Japanese. This is seen in the paint- ing of the Chinese school of Japan, British Museum, 822, in which one of the two attendants on a Chinese Emperor carries a long oval screen bordered with peacocks' feathers, and ornamented with two Phoenixes.1 We therefore perceive that the ceremonies and customs relating to the fan, no less than the various forms which this instrument assumed, were practically identical with the ancient peoples of the East and West ; — the same order of development, having its origin in the natural suggestion afforded by the wings of birds and of the broader leaved plants ; the fans of the Han dynasty reliefs, their exact counterpart being found in Egypt and Assyria ; the rigid hand-screens corresponding to those tabellae which the Romans derived from the Greeks, who in turn received them 1 In the romance of Amadis of Gaul it will be remembered that Appolidon gathered up the superb purple and gold feathers of the Phcenix which had remained long enough in the island to change its plumage, to make a fan ornamented with a diamond and carbuncle, as a present from Amadis to Oriane on arriving at the island. 51 HISTORY OF THE FAN from the peoples of Asia Minor, and which, doubtless, had their origin in the more remote East ; the employment of the fan in both religious and civil ceremonial and in war.1 Among the Bat Bu'u (eight precious things) carried at the end of staves by the inhabitants of Annam in their ceremonial processions, is a fan (Quat) symbolising the graceful perfection of the form of woman, and the light breeze that tempers the heat of the summer sun.2 These Bat Bu'u are made in three ways — i. Of carved wood lacquered and gilt. 2. Of tin or pewter. 3. In the form of transparencies to be lighted from within. A huge wooden fan is carried as part of the insignia of a mandarin's procession.3 The invention of the folding-fan is generally credited to the ingenious little inhabitants of the land of the rising sun ; its date, however, as well as its precise character, is impossible to determine with anything ap- proaching to accuracy. Tradition says that it was designed by an artist who lived in the reign of the Emperor Jen-ji, about 670 a.d., and was formed upon the principle of the construction of a bat's wing, this being in conformity with the general usage of Japanese designers, who derived their artistic motifs from natural constructive forms. The date of its intro- duction into China is also a matter of considerable uncertainty : we have a reference to it in a Chinese work of the date 960, to the effect that the tsin-theou-chen, or folding-fan, was introduced by Tchang-ping-hai, and was supposed to be offered as a tribute by the barbarians of the south- east, who came, holding in their hands the pleated fan, which occasioned much laughter and ridicule. All Chinese authors agree, however, that 1 M. Rondot quotes a passage from a native authority stating that the Chinese general, Tchou-ko-liang, commanded his three army corps holding a fan of white plumes. 2 G. Dumoutier, Les Symboles, les Emblemes et les Aaessoires du culte chez les Annamites, pp. 116-18. 3 H. A. Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, p. 64, note 13. 52 •a 1! a i i «1 r FANS OF THE FAR EAST it was the invention of foreigners, i.e. the Japanese, who, together with the Tartars, possessed folding-fans before they were known in China.1 M. Rondot records the fact that at first, only courtesans made use of folding-fans, honest women carried round screens.2 Since the appearance of the folding-fan, various materials have been pressed into its service, including ivory, tortoise-shell, lacquer, mother of pearl, the various woods — especially sandalwood, the more precious metals, silk, skin, and paper. No nation possesses a keener appreciation of ivory as a vehicle for artistic expression than the Chinese, whose carved balls in concentric spheres of open work are the wonder of western peoples. Ivory fans date from a very remote period, it is believed as early as 990 B.C., and are marvels of patient ingenuity. The Imperial Ivory Works within the palace at Peking was founded toward the close of the seventeenth century, and became the centre for the best production in this delicate material. Ivory fans are either of pierced fiat open work, or elaborately carved with subjects, the backgrounds of which are formed by delicate ribbing, imparting a lightness and softness to the fan not obtainable by any other means. An extraordinarily skilful example is the cockade-fan in the Wyatt collection at South Kensington ; this, together with several others in the same collection, have monograms in cursive European characters, and were executed to the order of Europeans. In each instance the blades are connected by means of a ribbon running through the whole. One 1 The traditional account is here given — some explanation of the absence of definite dates may be found in the hypothesis that there were always folding-fans — that the device of pleating a piece of paper or other material is so simple that it might occur to the youngest child. As a matter of fact, Nature herself invented the folded fan, as she may be said to suggest every invention. The palmetto leaf in its undeveloped shape is pleated and packed as neatly and completely as any folding-fan ever made. 2 This circumstance of the introduction of a new fashion by courtesans finds a curious parallel in Europe. Stow's Chronicle, Howes's edit., 1632, says: 'Womens Maskes, Buskes, Muffes, Fanns, Perewigs, and Bodkins were first devised (sic) and used in Italy by Curtezans, and there received of the best sort for gallant ornaments, and from thence they came to England, about the time of the massacre of Paris.' 53 HISTORY OF THE FAN example only of these fans is given; that bearing the word 'Angela' — fitting name of the gentle lady whose memory is revered wherever the English language is spoken. Tortoise-shell is carved with the same consummate skill as ivory, and on the same principle of delicate piercing and ribbing. Two such fans occur in the Wyatt collection, profusely decorated in relief with figures of horsemen, buildings, boats, and flowers. The material, which is softened both by warm water and dry heat, is obtained from the loggerhead turtle of the Malay Archipelago and Indian Ocean, and imported to Canton, a centre both for tortoise-shell and ivory workers. An extremely effective and picturesque fan is that in the same collection, formed of the feathers of the Argus pheasant, cut short to the fan shape, the sticks of carved tortoise-shell. In this the colours of the feathers harmonise extremely well with the translucent red brown of the tortoise-shell. This material is also lacquered, one of the earliest and most prized of the Chinese arts, and the technique of which is fully described in the Ko ku yao Inn, a. learned work on antiquities published in the reign of Hung Wu, the founder of the Ming dynasty, 1387. This substance is obtained from the lac-tree {Rhus vemiciferd), cultivated for the purpose throughout Central and Southern China. The tree exudes a resinous sap that becomes black upon its exposure to the air, the sap being extracted from the tree at night, during the summer months, and dried, ground, and strained through hempen cloth to an evenly flowing liquid, which is applied by the brush. Gold plays an important part both in the composition of the lacquer itself, to which it imparts a richness and pellucidity which is extremely beautiful, and also in its subsequent decoration. The fan and case of Canton lacquer in the Wyatt collection are richly decorated with panels of buildings and gardens, on a diapered background, overlaid with flowers, butterflies, and other devices, and are excellent examples of Chinese gold 54 Z,a£0tt£-rc& fia-n.. ladf M>rtAc£rfi dczrretS ZrcryT^a-n-, ^-itA -r^ajrui-StnyeJa.. JMr W- JELu,rcC<.tt - Cou-tts . SM.7? FANS OF THE FAR EAST lacquer, an art which, although originating in China, has been somewhat neglected, and has, at a later period, been brought by the Japanese to a greater perfection than the Chinese have at any time attained. Sandalwood is largely employed for fans, on account of its light- ness, the ease with which it is worked, and also its fine aroma. The tree is indigenous to India, and is imported by the Chinese, who employ it for a variety of purposes, including the perfumed joss-sticks which are com- mon throughout the East. These fans are worked on the same principle of flat piercing as those of ivory. They are also carved in relief, but can scarcely be said to rival the last-named substance with its delicate variety of translucent softness. The large fan at South Kensington is a good example. Mother of pearl is a favourite material for fan-sticks on account of its beautiful play of iridescent colour. A number of fans of Chinese work- manship, both of mother of pearl and ivory, have found their way to Europe and have been remounted. Such a fan is that in the Wyatt col- lection with a subject finely painted on chicken skin by Eugene Andrd. Bamboo has already been referred to as in early use. It is ex- tensively employed for the cheaper fans on account of its durability as well as cheapness. The number of ribs vary from sixteen to thirty-six; the former may be regarded as the standard number. The art of filigree is practised by the Chinese with the most consum- mate skill; it is occasionally in gold, but more often in silver gilt, the gilding being employed for the double purpose of preventing tarnishing and for decorative effect. Filigree work is often enriched by means of inlay, either enamel, or the turquoise feathers of the kingfisher, which latter, however, are merely gummed on the surface of the metal, and, as a consequence, are wanting in durability. Enamelling has been practised in western Asia from a very early period, i.e. previous to the Christian era, and is believed to have reached 55 HISTORY OF THE FAN China about the thirteenth century. There are two kinds, both accom- plished by the process known as incrustation — cloisonne, in which the pattern is raised on the surface of the metal by soldering on to it metal or wire strips of copper, silver, or gold, thus forming a series of cells or cloisons ; and champleve, in which the cell-walls enclosing the pattern are either modelled and cast, or cut and hollowed out of the metal itself by means of graving tools : in both, the pattern is filled in with enamel. Of the colours, there are two well-contrasted shades of blue — a dark tint made from cobalt and resembling the lapis-lazuli tone, and a light sky blue or turquoise; several greens made from copper, a dark coral red, a fine yellow, black, and white. Chinese enamels are usually fired in the open courtyard, protected only by a primitive cover of iron network, the charcoal fire being regu- lated by a number of men standing round with large fans in their hands.1 Of the interesting fans in which the combined arts of filigree and enamel are employed we give a charming example from the Wyatt collection at South Kensington. In this, the effective colour scheme is that of the two blues and gold ; the design being a conventional rendering of a Phoenix and foliage. In the colour plate given of the fan in the collection of Mr. M. Tomkinson, the leaf has a large cartouche in the centre representing a Chinese garden, with the hostess welcoming a visitor who has arrived on horseback, the servant bringing tea. On either side are small medal- lions of a sun-dial and a broken column, evidently introduced to the order of a European patron. Of the familiar class of fans having large compositions of figures of which the heads are of applied ivory, painted, the costumes of silk appliqud, the sticks of ivory elaborately carved, the example illustrated from the collection of Mr. Burdett-Coutts belonged to a mandarin of the first rank. A beautiful example was formerly in the possession of 1 S. W. Bushell, Chinese Art. 56 £A-Ctt-&J'e /^ZJZ, t^-t^tA^ i.ft>ry m^n^a^c*-* Ai' rv. &u.r*L.u - Cotuts . m.t: FANS OF THE FAR EAST H.I.M. the Empress Eugdnie,1 the stick of sandalwood. The brins of these fans, twelve in number, are occasionally varied, as follows: — Two of white ivory, pierced and carved ; two of silver filigree and enamel ; two of ivory, pierced and carved, coloured scarlet ; two of tor- toise-shell, carved and pierced ; two of engraved white pearl ; and two of gilt filigree enamel. The panaches of gilt filigree, with silver dragons in relief. An example occurs in the collection of Mr. Messel, another was in the possession of the late Mr. R. W. Edis. Almost every important city or district in China has its characteristic fan — something distinctive in the make, colour, or ornamentation of the folding-fan, which is the fan par excellence in the Chinese mind. The convenience of this fan will at once be apparent — it occupies but little space, it may, when not in use, be stuck in the high boot of the full- dressed Chinaman, or in the ample folds of his dress. These fans are made to suit every class of society from mandarin to peasant — to suit the changing seasons, in different sizes in proportion to the quantity of breeze required. The Son of Heaven, during the sultry summer months, employs fans of feathers, and during winter of silk. Fashion, however, lays down inexorable laws as to the time and period of their use, and to be seen with a fan too early or too late in the year is considered as mauvais ton. A poem by Ow-Yang Hisu informs us that ' In the tenth moon the people of the capital turn to their warm fans.' During the warm weather the fan forms part of the ceremony of tea-drinking ; the host takes his fan as soon as tea is drunk, and, bowing to the company, says, ' Thsing-chen ' (I invite you to fan yourselves); each guest immediately using his fan with great gravity and modesty. It is considered a breach of etiquette to be without a fan on such an occasion, or to refrain from its use.2 1 Her Imperial Majesty's collection of fans has for some time been dispersed. 2 Abel Remusat, Melanges posthumcs d'histoire et de littirature, quoted by G. Ashdown Audsley. h 57 HISTORY OF THE FAN The Chinese have exhausted every species of ingenuity in the con- struction of fans of an outre" character. The ' broken fan,' a curious trick, is to all intents and purposes a simple folding-fan, and opened from left to right presents no feature uncommon. On being opened to the reverse, the whole fan appears to fall to pieces, each bone, with the part attached, being separated from the other as though the connecting strings were broken : the principle is extremely simple, but the effect is surprising. A fan which has been styled the ' impracticable,' is of circular form, the radiants of ivory, tortoise-shell, sandalwood, or metal filigree, per- forated to such a degree as to render it useless as a means of disturbing the air. These are elaborately carved with figures, scroll-work, and other designs, or with birds, flowers, etc., in silver gilt filigree. The ' double-entente ' fan, opened in the ordinary manner, exhibits some harmless motif such as a flower, bird, or landscape ; opened the reverse way, it discloses a ribald sketch that would entail severe penalties on its maker if discovered. The Peking variety shows two such pictures which are not seen when the fan is opened, but are disclosed by turning back the two end ribs of the fan. The 'dagger-fan' is an invention of the Japanese, its importation into China being strictly forbidden. In its outward appearance it is sufficiently harmless, being apparently an ordinary lacquered folding-fan : in reality it is a sheath containing a deadly blade, short and sharp, resembling a small Malay kris (see illustration facing page 60). These dagger or stiletto fans are by no means confined to the East ; in the British Museum is a print of an Italian stiletto concealed in a case made in imitation of a fan ; the panaches of ivory, engraved with Italian arabesques. Inscription fans are common, and exhibit an endless variety of devices. Some are literary tours de force, the most famous being that associated with the Emperor Chien WSn, of the Liang dynasty, a.d. 550, 58 m Chinese . K*.rL /&&> Cenl. Victoria (TiAlierCAi FANS OF THE FAR EAST and said to be the composition of the monarch himself. This consists of a couplet of eight characters written in the eight corners of an octagon fan. On beginning at any one of the eight characters and reading round the way of the sun, it forms a couplet of perfect sense and rhythm. A story is told of a favourite of the Emperor Ch'eng Ti of the Han dynasty, B.C. 32, whose name was Pan, and who for some time had been a confidante of his Majesty and the Queen of the Imperial Seraglio. Having persuaded herself that something more than an ordinary attach- ment of the hour existed between herself and the ' Son of Heaven,' finding her influence on the wane and being unable to conceal any longer her mortification, grief, and despair, she forwarded to the Emperor a circular screen-fan, upon which were inscribed the following lines express- ing the contrast between the summer of her reciprocated love and the autumn of her desertion : — ' O fair white silk, fresh from the weaver's loom, Clear as the frost, bright as the winter snow — See, friendship fashions out of thee a fan : Round as the round moon shines in heaven above ; At home, abroad, a close companion thou ; Stirring at every move the grateful gale, And yet I fear, ah me ! that autumn chills Cooling the dying summer's torrid rage, Will see thee laid neglected on the shelf, All thought of bygone days, bygone like them.'1 From this period, in China, a deserted wife has been called an autumn fan. 1 H. A. Giles, 'Chinese Fans,' Fraser's Magazine, May 1879. 59 HISTORY OF THE FAN FANS OF THE FAR EAST— Continued JAPAN THE fan is regarded by the Japanese as an emblem of life, that widens and expands as the sticks radiate from the rivet or starting-point, and for this reason is selected for the new-year's gift.1 It enters into almost every affair of the life of the people, from Emperor to peasant ; friends greet each other with a wave of the fan ; it is one of the gifts which the bride takes with her to her husband's house ; it is presented to the youth on the attainment of his majority ; 2 it is used by jugglers in feats of skill, by the umpires of wrestling matches as signal, by singers to modulate their voices ; the condemned man marches to the scaffold fan in hand ; the executioner does not relinquish his fan during the performance of his duty. The early history of the fan in the country of Dai Nippon is substan- tially the same as in all the countries of the far and nearer East, and presents us with the same order of development, the earliest being formed of the primitive palm leaf, or of feathers. We have, in the story of ' The Tengus ' a description of the Dai or Master Tengu, who wears a long 1 Kaname, the rock which holds the earth together and keeps it quiet, means the rivet of a fan. The great earthquake fish Namazu has the Giant Kashima for keeper, who was charged to subdue the eastern part of the world, and accomplished this feat by running his sword through the earth. In time the sword hardened into stone and was named Kaname (rivet). When Namazu becomes too violent and shakes the earth, Kashima jumps upon him with the rock Kaname. * 'Upon a male child being presented at his birth to the temple of his father's particular deity, he receives, amongst other gifts, two fans, while a girl receives a cake of pomade, which brings good looks.' DO JVetstlkl , Tha DcUTiriyu with feather ix^cJu-tra. .WW. L.E>elirens. nw 'Vf FCLTI. JVfn W. L. -BeA-r*«*w. CampI'a.nofEaales Featnens, lurmhajidLt. AVL.C.Fi.Mcjtd.. FANS OF THE FAR EAST FEATHER-FAN (From a Japanese painting. British Museum.) grey beard down to his girdle, moustaches to his chin, and carries in his left hand as a sign of his rank a fan made of seven wide feathers pointed at the tip : this he waves while singing a song, doubtless for the purpose of modulating his voice. The fan is identical in form with that of Chung-li Ch'uan, one of the eight Taoist immortals, referred to on page 47. The rigid screens received from China at the close of the sixth century are referred to in the earlier part of this chapter, under China. Those in use in Japan present no material difference to the Chinese except in the details of their decorative significance. The larger screens were employed both in civil and religious ceremonial, as war standards, and waved by servants in attendance upon royal and distinguished personages. These latter denoted the rank of the owner, the material being of silk or other fabric stretched over a wooden framework, painted or other- wise decorated, the forms extremely varied, but more usually those of the circle, oval, or pear. The pear-shaped hand-screen is seen in the hands of Hotei, the fat god of prosperity, and of Juro, the god of longevity, as an invariable accompaniment of those divinities. An example is given from a portrait of Lu T'ung-pin, a Taorist Rishi of the eighth century, by Go-gaku, nineteenth century, This has a red tassel or tail at the end of the 61 HAND-SCREEN, BAMBOO HANDLE (From a Japanese painting. British Museum.) British Museum, 640. HISTORY OF THE FAN fan, a kind of combination of fan and fly-whip. A similar fan appears in a painting of the Caligraphic school, British Museum, 1617. This fan is of Chinese origin, and is constantly represented in the art of that country. Fly-whips were also used. Of the representations of the sixteen Arhats (Buddhist divinities) given in the ' Butsu zo dzu-i,' three hold fly-whips (futsujin) in their hands. This instrument is also seen in the right hand of Vimalakirrti, an Indian priest, in the painting on silk attributed to Shingetsu, Sesshiu school, fifteenth century, British Museum collection. The fly-whip or chasse-mouche was also used by generals while on horseback, this being made of strips of tough paper suspended from a lacquered handle mounted with bronze. A list of the more important varieties of Japanese fans, together with the dates of their introduction, as given by native authorities, will probably be of service. Rigid fans or hand-screens, introduced from China, end of sixth century a.d. Folding-fans (bamboo), invented by the Japanese, 668-671 a.d. Gumbai Uchiwa, flat iron battle-fans, eleventh century. Gun Sen, folding iron battle-fans, twelfth century. Hi ogi, court-fans, eleventh century. Mai ogi, dancing-fans, beginning of seventeenth century. Rikiu ogi, tea-fans, Water-fans for kitchen use, eighteenth century. The invention of the folding-fan has already been referred to. Its earliest form is the Komori (bat), so named from the supposition of the wing of this animal suggesting the principle of its construction. It is formed of fifteen bamboo sticks having a slight re-divergence springing from the handle end, so that when held closed in the hand as it is by courtiers while fulfilling the office of fan-bearing, it still appears open. It is stated 62 4 p 1 « VI Si 8s fri FANS OF THE FAR EAST that this spread-out form was adopted as court-fan on account of the misuse of the dagger-fan. The mount is of paper, which may be painted with any design in any colour except the unlucky green and light purple. One of the many traditions of its invention may be given. It is attributed to a fan-maker of the Tenji period, 668-672, whose name is forgotten, living at Tamba near Kyoto. He was married to a shrew, and on a certain night a bat having found its way into the sleeping-room, the woman reviled her husband for not getting up to throw the vampire out. The animal coming in contact with the lamp, scorched its wings and fell to the floor. As the man picked it up, the opening of the creature's wings suggested to him the principle of a folding-fan that might be carried in one's sleeve.1 The Suye hiro ogi (wide end) has a similar divergence to the foregoing, with the addition of a slight curve or rounding of the outward sticks. It was used for the dances in the No drama ; the number of sticks varying from fifteen to twenty-five. This also dates from the seventh century. The example illustrated is decorated with a series of crests of various families on a gold ground. In a drawing by Bun-chin, nineteenth century, British Museum, 891, of Performers in the ' No' Theatre, is represented a beautiful fan of a peacock with outspread tail and branches of bamboo, in gold, blue, and green. This fan is of the ordinary shape. The Akome" ogi is the earlier court-fan, and dates from the invention of the folding-fan in the seventh century. It consists of thirty-eight blades of wood painted white, decorated with cherry, pine, plum, or chrysanthemum, on a ground of gold and silver powder, ' among the mist.' The fan is ornamented at the corners with an arrangement of artificial flowers in silk, with twelve long streamers of different coloured silks ; the rivet is formed of either a bird or butterfly. This type of fan was in use by the court ladies until 1868. 1 Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art. 63 HISTORY OF THE FAN By the courtesy of Mr. W. Crewdson we are enabled to reproduce one of these rare fans, bearing the following inscription : — ' The decorations at the end of this Akome-ogi show that it was used by a court lady. At Kioto, the Mikado's Palace had Lemon trees at the right-hand side of the entrance and Cherry trees at the left ; hence these ornaments composed of Cherry flowers and Pine knots.' The description which Pierre Loti has given us of these fans is so charming that we cannot refrain from quoting it. ' They wave with constant motion, or carry shut, their court-fans, on the pleated silk (?) of which are delicately painted dreamy fancies, of inexpressible charm, picturing the reflection in the water of cloud forms, of moons wintry pale, the flight of birds, or showers of peach blossom wafted by the wind in April mists. At each angle of the mount is tied an enormous tassel with shades of chenille, the ends of which trail along the ground, brushing the fine sand at each movement of the fan.' The Hi-ogi court-fans are made of the Hi wood (Chamcecyparis obtusa), this being a soft light velvety wood of a beautiful golden brown, having the additional advantage of immunity from the attacks of wood-eating insects. The brins are twenty-five in number, fastened with a metal rivet, and threaded through with silk strings having very long ends, looped at the top corner of the outer ribs to form a rosette or other floral device. These fans were first introduced with the simple ornament of the owner's crest afterwards they were painted with great elaboration and delicacy. At court ceremonial the Emperor and nobles often bear the Hi-ogi instead of the Shaku, which is a short staff or sceptre made of wood (yew) or ivory, generally held vertical in the right hand against the lower part of the chest, to give the body a more dignified bearing ; when the fan is borne, it is generally carried closed, and held in the same manner as the Shaku.1 Before the age of fifteen a fan of common wood is carried, painted 1 Josiah Conder, Japanese Costume. 64 Court Fcutys Fart. A home Ooft ■ A/VyViUon- Crewd^ on- War Fan . Gu n Sen 1 AC WHa-rvLry SrrUtL. FANS OF THE FAR EAST on the outside, and ornamented with silk threads or strings in five colours ; on his sixteenth birthday the Japanese youth attains his majority and receives a present of a fan. The code regulating all the details of court ceremonial is absolute, and always observed ; the use of ivory for the Shaku is confined to the highest ranks, or the most important ceremonial ; no noble could use an ivory Shaku on any occasion. The various usages connected with the fan are subjected to similar restrictions. Ladies carried in place of the Shaku the Hi-ogi. A fan of special make and design is used by the Empress, and its use is forbidden to any subject. The blades are twenty-three in number, connected with a white silk ribbon. The decoration is confined to the chrysanthemum, pine, orange blossom, plum, or Camellia Japonica. The ribbon rosettes or loops, affixed to the top of the outer blades, are arranged in keeping with the particular flower which is represented on the fan ; these have seven long streamers, four feet long, of different colours. The rivet also is of a particular kind — paper string} Chukei are fans borne by priests and nobles ; these have a re- divergence at the ends, and date from the period of the introduction of the folding-fan ; they are often painted with the most consummate skill, reflecting the best traditions of Japanese art. Many of these paintings exist ; in most cases the leaves have been removed from the sticks and mounted as pictures. Fabulous stories are extant recounting the marvellous accomplish- ment of the painters of the earlier epochs ; amongst these is an account of Tadahira, who is said to have painted upon a fan a cuckoo which uttered its characteristic note whenever the fan was opened, and of Tsunenori, who drew a lion so life-like that other beasts fled from it. 1 Mrs. Salwey, Fans of Japan. 65 HISTORY OF THE FAN The leading schools of Japanese painting are the Buddhist, Yamato- Tosa. Chinese, Sesshiu Kano, Matahei (popular), Korin, Shijo (natural- istic), and Ukiyo ; each of these has well-marked characteristics preserved even to the present day. The art of Japan was to a great extent founded upon, and is in certain directions a development of, that of the older civilisation of China. The earliest artist, therefore, recorded in Japanese annals, is a Chinese, Nanriu by name, of royal descent, who came to Japan about the end of the fifth century ; but of this master, and of his immediate successors, there are no known examples. It was in the succeeding century, upon the introduction of Buddhism into Japan, that we find the first establishment of a school of Japanese art, initiated by the Chinese and Coreans, and dedicated to the mural decoration of Buddhistic temples. From the sixth to the ninth centuries, the history of Japanese painting is more or less clouded in doubt, and the first great artist who emerges from the general obscurity is Kanaoka (ninth century), although the few examples extant which are attributed to this painter are doubted by the best experts. The Yamato-Tosa school, though the direct outcome of the study of Chinese methods, was essentially Japanese and naturalistic in character, and was founded by Kasuga Motomitsu in the latter part of the tenth century. In the thirteenth century Tsunetaka, son of Kasuga Mitsunaga, assumed the name of Tosa and gave to the Yamato school the name it has since retained. An important movement set in at the beginning of the fifteenth century, no less than a Chinese renaissance. For centuries Chinese influence had been waning, and the national style of Yamato and Tosa had held the field. 66 i I I A i 1 FANS OF THE FAR EAST Sesshiu, the remarkable painter who founded the school bearing his name, was of the noble family of Ota, and was born in 1440. At the age of twelve or thirteen he was intended for the Church and placed under the instruction of the abbot of the temple of Hofukuji. Sesshiu's sympathies, however, were all in the direction of the fine arts, he neglected religious training, and a story is told of him — one of those extraordinary legends familiar in Chinese and Japanese annals — that upon one occasion, when bound to a pillar as punishment for some misconduct, he beguiled the weary hours of waiting by drawing rats upon the floor, using his toes for pencil and his tears for ink (1), the representation being so life-like as to alarm his janitor. Some versions of the story affirm that, upon the approach of the priest, the rats scampered away. At the age of forty he visited China, the fountain-head, but was surprised to find that he had more to teach than to learn. The fan of Hotei and the children, probably by Kano Sho-yei, 1591, may be accepted as one of the finest examples of a painted fan of the Kano school, the last of the three branches of the fifteenth-century revival of Chinese teaching. The school was founded by Masanobu, a painter of landscape, born c. 1423 and died 1520, its actual head, however, being Motonobu, his son, born 1476. Hotei (Master Linen-sack), the god of prosperity, was a Chinese priest of the tenth century, famous for his fatness and his love of children. He could sleep in the snow, never washed himself, and had the power of infallibly predicting future events. The legends attached to his name are very similar to those narrated of many Taoist Rishis, but his claim to a position as Divinity appears to be due to the view enunciated in the Butsu-Zo dzu-i and other works, that he was an incarnation of Miroku Bosatsu Maitreya, the Messiah of the Buddhists, in which capacity his image has long been worshipped in Chinese temples. He is usually represented with a fan of the pear-shaped gourd type, and carries a cloth 67 HISTORY OF THE FAN bag as a trap for little boys and girls, who are enticed inside to see the wonderful things it is supposed to contain, and then imprisoned until they can beg their way out. These ' Precious Things ' include the Lucky Rain Coat, the Sacred Key, the Inexhaustible Purse, etc.1 Innumerable pictures of Hotei by Japanese artists are in existence, some dating from the fifteenth century. The charmingly poetic view of the Tamagawa River, with the tea-plant in blossom, and flying cuckoo (Hoto-Togisu), is probably by Kano San Raku, 1633. Both these fans are accompanied by a Japanese certificate of authenticity. Autograph, motto, and inscription fans are referred to in another part of this work.2 The practice of inscribing sacred texts upon fans, obtained during the latter part of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth century, the period ' when the Buddhist religion was openly professed by the wealthy and warmly supported by the luxurious.' Fragments of Buddhist sutras written on fans and fan leaves exist at the temples at Yamato, 6saka, the Imperial Museum T6kyo, and elsewhere. These are copied from the ' Lotus of the True Law,' or other Mahayana texts of a like nature. The fans, though differing somewhat in size, are all alike in paper, pigments, and style of painting, and evidently had a common origin ; they are overlaid with gold-leaf and dusted with fine sand ; upon this a thin wash of red or black pigment is applied. The sacred text is written in ink, over a painting, usually a figure-subject and bearing no reference to the text ; the faces sketched in a curious convention known as Hikime" Kagihana (eye with a line, the nose with a key), in which the eye is represented by a straight line and the nose with a somewhat acute angle. This convention has been traced to Kasuga Takayoshi (beginning of the twelfth century), who painted a number of picture rolls illustrating the tales of the Genii. 1 Anderson, British Museum Catalogue of Japanese Paintings. 2 Chapter XI. page 285. 68 it « <0 1 4 ST 3 is 5 s I •5 3 J <9 R 4 t ii FANS OF THE FAR EAST A fan leaf owned by the Temple of Saikyoji, Sakamoto, Omi, is illustrated in Selected Relics of Japanese Art, S. Tajima. A hi-ogi, with figures and pine-tree, in the Shinto Temple, Itsukushima-Jinsha Aki, is illustrated in the same work : this latter, doubtless, is a production of the Taira era, possibly a dedication to the temple from a scion of the Taira family, and painted by a daughter of Taira Kiyomori, the premier, 1 1 67- 1 1 80, the writer of the 'Lotus of the True Law.' A similar combination of painting and writing obtained later, and was practised by Koyetsu Hon-Ami, the predecessor of Korin Ogata, the reputed founder of the Korin school. This artist was a skilful writer of Chinese ideographs, in which art he was one of the ' Three Pens ' of his time, being the founder of the Koyetsu school of caligraphy.1 A fine example of Koyetsu in the possession of Baron Ryuichi Kuki is reproduced in Mr. Tajima's work. This is painted on a gold ground, and represents a rabbit in a flowered field. The fan is divided in two parts, the writing, which is by the artist, being on the gilt portion. Koyetsu died at Kyoto in 1637, aged eighty-two. The Ukiyoye" school included most of the makers of colour prints ; two of the more famous of them, Masanobu Kiato, and Hokusai Katsushika, born in the same year, 1760, also painted fans. The former opened a shop at Ginza for the sale of smokers' implements and medicine, and sold besides folding-fans and long panels upon which poems were written ; both of these he ornamented with sketches ; they became renowned far and wide, and from their sale he derived large profit. A fan leaf by Hokusai, a masterly sketch of the head and shoulders of a ' Beauty,' is illustrated in Tajima's work, as also several fans painted with courtesans, by an almost equally celebrated maker of colour prints, Kunisada. 1 Beautiful writing is highly prized both in China and Japan. Caligraphy, says Mr. S. W. Bushell (Chinese Art, p. 31), is a branch of the fine arts in China, and the penman who can write elegantly in sweep- ing lines with a flowing brush is ranked above the artist. 69 HISTORY OF THE FAN Battle- or war-fans are of two kinds— the flat, rigid screen (uchiwa) which is the earliest, and the folding (ogi). In both, iron is the material of which it is mainly composed. The first named is sometimes formed com- pletely of metal (iron and brass), is of considerable weight, and is used by officers both for direction, offence and defence, i.e. as baton, weapon, and shield. This sometimes assumes a circular form, and is occasionally inlaid with the more precious metals ; more often, however, it resembles the pear- or gourd-shaped screen. In the centre example illustrated, belonging to Mr. W. Harding Smith, the handle is of lacquered wood, the ornaments at its extremities, together with the rim of the fan blade, of bronze gilt ; it bears an inscription on the obverse in Japanese, and on the reverse in Chinese, as follows : — Japanese script. ' Kisei ai shozaru jun-kwan no hashi naki-ga gotoshi.' ' Wrong and right (or odd and even) happen for ever, impartially, like the revolving ball.' This may, possibly, be rendered by the following : — ' Defeat and victory succeed each other by a turn of Fortune's wheel.' Chinese script. 1 Sono toki-koto kaze no gotoku Sono shizuka-nuru koto hayashi no gotoshi.' ' Its sharpness is as the wind, its softness as the grave.' The fan in the possession of Mr. W. L. Behrens is ornamented with two dragons in low relief, the motto ' Tenka tai hei ' (international peace). In the folding battle-fan, the stick is of wrought iron, the branches 70 FANS OF THE FAR EAST varying from ten to fourteen in number ; in many military fans, the stick is of bamboo, painted black, the guards of iron, often arrow-shaped, and richly inlaid with silver.1 The decoration of the mount, of thick paper, consists of the sun, moon, or north star, usually in red, but also in gold, on a black or coloured ground. An unusual example, illustrated, has a gold sun on the one side, and a silver crescent moon and nine golden planets on the reverse ; the ground being light, the guards of yellow bronze, ' seutoku.' The fine fan in the possession of Mr. L. C. R. Messel has on the obverse a golden sun with two flying birds, and on the reverse a silver sun with similar birds. The sun motif is occasionally abandoned in favour of a figure-subject. M. Ph. Burty exhibited at Liverpool in 1877 a fan that belonged to a commander-in-chief; the leaf, of stout buff paper covered with silk tissue, is painted in india ink with the Seven Sages in the Forest of Bamboru. The brins are of plain whalebone, the panaches of oxidised iron, elaborately inlaid with scroll-work and crests in silver, the latter being of the powerful family of Nai-To. Another fan from the same collection belonged also to an officer of high rank. The brins are of bronze gilt, the panaches of polished iron, shaped like slips of bamboo, and chased with lions and flowers. On the inside of one panache is an inscription in inlaid gold, stating that the ironwork was made by U. Da-Kane-Signe ; the leaf of glistening paper. The most characteristic war-fans are, however, those having the simple red sun, with no superfluous decoration, the initial purpose of these instru- ments being that of a signal. They constantly appear in representations of battle-scenes, the general on his war-horse in the heat of battle brandishing in his right hand the fan, the symbol of his authority and command. In 1 In this process of metal inlay, the ground is broken up by means of an engraver's tool, the pattern formed of silver wire, hammered in. 71 HISTORY OF THE FAN Hokusai's painting of ' Tamdtomo and the Demons ' (British Museum, No. 1747), the hero is grasping a huge bow in his right hand, and waving the folding battle-fan in his left. In a print by Kuniyoshi (c. 1820) of the battle of Kawanakajima between Uyesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen (fifteenth century), a sword- cut is parried by the war-fan. In a representation of the same battle by Yoshitora, a dismounted general is directing with a war-fan an attack by spearmen. In the colour print by Hiroshige 11. of Yoshitsune and Benkei, the war- fan also appears. In the print by Shunsui of Atsumori and Kumagai, the hero, mounted, is plunging into the sea followed closely by his adversary Kumagai, also mounted, brandishing the war-fan as a signal and challenge.1 Two of the many stories or legends relating to the war-fan may be given. — The first refers to Nasu no Yoichi, an archer, whose clan took the fan as their crest,2 in allusion to his performance at the battle of Yashima in 1185. 'When the Taira were driven from Kyoto by the Minamoto in 1182, the Empress Ni no Ama flew with the child-emperor Antoku, to the shrine of Itsukum- isha, where thirty pink fans, bearing the design of the sun disc (Hi no Maru) were kept. The head-priest gave one to Antoku, saying that it contained in the red disc the Kami of the dead Emperor Takakura (1 169-1 180), and would cause arrows to recoil upon the enemy. The fan was accordingly attached to a mast of the Taira ship, on which a court lady is always depicted, and a challenge sent to Minamoto no Yoshitsune, which was accepted by one of his archers, Nasu no Yoichi, who on horseback rode in the waves, and with 1 The widow of Atsumori who was killed in the fight here referred to, in 1184, is credited with the invention of the folding-fan, although dates are somewhat confusing. At the temple of Mieido in Kyoto, whither she had retired to hide her grief under the garb of a nun, she cured the abbot of a fever by fanning him with a paper folding-fan over which she muttered incantations : and to this day the priests of the temple are considered special adepts in the manufacture of fans ; hence the name Mieido is adopted by many fan shops all over the islands. (Basil Chamberlain, Things Japanese.) 2 The fan was used as crest by many Japanese families. A number of examples are given in Mrs. Salwey's Fans 0/ Japan. 72 War /tests , Gun. Sen , Mc IV. Hardlny SmltA.. FANS OF THE FAR EAST a well-directed arrow broke the rivet which held the leaves together, and thus shattered the fan.' The second tells of Araki, a Samurai whom Oda Nobunaga wished to kill, summoning him to audience, placing himself in such a position that the neck of the Samurai came in line with the sliding panels separating the audience chamber from the daimio's room, intending to have the shoji slammed together as the man knelt, and thus decapitate him. Araki, sus- pecting the trap, promptly laid his iron fan in the groove, jamming the shutters, and thus saving himself.1 The Ha uchiwa (jin sen) is a camp-fan originally introduced from China in the seventh century and made of the feathers of the eagle, pheasant, or peacock, the handle usually lacquered red, black, or blue ; the interesting example illustrated is formed of eagles' feathers fixed in a horn handle. Dancing-fans (Mai ogi) were introduced at the beginning of the seven- teenth century. The brins are ten in number, the mount of thick paper, usually bearing a family crest. One of the earliest of these fans is to be seen in the painting of a dancer by Matabei (born 1578), in the Morrison collection (reproduced in Painting in the Far East, Laurence Binyon), the decoration of the mount consisting of a few scattered leaves. The fan is the most usual accompaniment of the dance, and is generally seen in the hands of the Kagura dancers or of the performers with the Shishi mask. The fan dance, which is more nearly allied to jugglery than to the dance, is said to commemorate the performance of Uzume while alluring the Sun Goddess Amaterasu from the cavern, whither she once retired, plunging the world into temporary darkness by her absence. In this, the fan represents the leaves of the pine-tree, the performer balancing a number on his forehead, nose, mouth, hands and feet. Tea-fans (Rikiu ogi) are for use at the tea ceremonies celebrated in honour of tea in every province on the first day of the first month, and com- 1 Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art. k 73 HISTORY OF THE FAN memorating the curing of the Emperor Murakami, 947-967 a.d., of a disease against which the physicians were powerless. The Emperor recovered after drinking an offering of tea made to the Goddess Kwanyin. The code, that formerly was of a gorgeous description, was modified later by Sen-no Rikiu, from whom the fan set apart as cake tray or saucer derives its name. The Rikiu fan is of the simplest possible construction, having only three sticks, the decoration also being of a simple character. It is used for handing round little cakes, and for no other purpose, fanning being strictly tabooed during such a dignified proceeding.1 The giant closing fans (Mita ogi) were used in the processions at Ise in honour of the Sun Goddess, the traditional originator of the Japanese dynasty. These were six or seven feet long, five men being appointed to carry one of this huge magnitude. Water-fans (Mizu uchiwa), for kitchen use, date from the eighteenth century. These are of bamboo split into segments, covered with stout paper, and varnished or lightly lacquered so as to allow of the fan being dipped in water, thus securing extra coolness by evaporation. They are often decorated with figures and other subjects, the varnish subsequently applied being of a rich warm brown. Roll-up fans (Maki uchiwa) are circular, the paper stiffened with thin strips of bamboo ; the handle is of bamboo cut through with a slit to allow the circular fan, which is set on a pivot, to have free play. When open, the strips of the bamboo foundation are horizontal, thus securing rigidity; when not in use, the position of the strips may be reversed, and the disc rolled round the stick and tied. Of modern fans, those of ivory and tortoise-shell, carved or decorated with lacquer and inlay, are, for the most part, made for exportation, and are often of extreme beauty. The excellent example in the Victoria and Albert Museum is decorated with circular medallions in gold lacquer of 1 Mrs. Salwey, Fans of Japan. 74 j41r: H'. 7i?rrLAc-7i*r0n,- FANS OF THE FAR EAST various shades, portions being carved in relief. It is finely inlaid in places with mother of pearl ; signed by Taishin (a pupil of Zesshin), and dated 1884. An example, equally fine, is given from the collection of Mr. M. Tomkinson. This is decorated with a view of Fuji san, or Fuji-no-yama (peerless mountain); those born within its watch are con- sidered most happy and fortunate beings. ' Great Fujiyama, tow'ring to the sky ! A treasure art thou giv'n to mortal man, A god-protector watching o'er Japan — On thee for ever let me feast mine eye.'1 Of the cheaper hand-screens exported in large quantities to Europe, the simplest form is that of a dried palm leaf cut to the required shape, and bound round the edge, the stem forming the handle. The most common variety is made by splitting bamboo into thin strips that are spread out radially, fastened with thin cord, and covered with paper ; these are decorated with designs displaying high qualities of arrangement and graphic skill, and are printed in that process of chromoxylography which, if not actually invented by the Japanese, has been carried by them to its highest point of excellence. A more elaborate hand-screen is also exported, the covering of silk, painted. It will be readily understood, that the fan, entering as it does so closely into the daily life of the Japanese, should also form the subject of many games. Two characteristic instances may be cited. The ' fan and cup' game was particularly favoured by court nobles and ladies. A company met by the river, each member launching on the water a fan prepared with varnish or lacquer to ensure buoyancy and to prevent absorption of moisture. The game consisted in the composition of a verse or couplet of poetry during the time the fans were at the mercy of wind and wave, and before they regained terra-firma. Tea-cups were 1 Ode from the Manyoskin, translated by Basil Chamberlain. 75 HISTORY OF THE FAN also used, this last being illustrated in a Chinese makimono by Hwei-chi Ku-Yuen, British Museum, 276. In the ogi otoshi or fan target game, a target called ' cho,' made some- what in the form of a butterfly, is placed on a low table or pedestal on the floor. A fan is thrown from a given distance with a sudden and peculiar turn of the wrist, causing it to reverse itself in its passage through the air and strike the target with the rivet end. This game is played by two people facing the target at opposite ends. Bells are attached to the outer edge of the 'cho,' that sound when a successful hit has been accomplished.1 No notice, however brief, of the fans of Japan would be complete without some reference to the constant employment of the fan form as a decorative motif in Japanese design, one of the many evidences of the important place the fan holds in the affections of the people. Lacquered tea-trays assume the shape of the fan ; inkstands take the form of a closed fan, the ink-well at the rivet end, the body of the fan forming a case for pens ; 2 while in diapered patterns, borders, and other decoration, both flat and in relief, the fan motif is constantly made use of. The interesting series of fan-shaped panels illustrative of Japanese history, by an unknown artist of the Yamato Tosa school, seventeenth century, British Museum, 305-324, are excellent instances of the use of the fan form in flat decoration, these being probably removed from an old screen. Three kakemonos in the collection of Mr. R. Phene- Spiers are each finely painted with four full-sized fans, decorated with various lilies, drawn with that consummate skill and knowledge of plant form which would appear to be the peculiar heritage of the sons of Dai Nippon. 1 Transactions of tlie Japan Society, vol. v. Paper by Mrs. Salwey on Pastimes and Amusements of the Japanese. - In the Musee Guimet, Paris, is a tea-service, fine in execution, signed 'Kawamoto Hansouke,' an artist of the province of Owari, the saucers being shaped like fans. In the same collection is a large plate, fourteen inches in its longest dimension, shaped like a folding-fan. 76 Three. CAUJi &L: -M 'Z. C.TUAiejsel. l^a-lrn. Leaf Fan*, u*ed- by tLe. Crrc^tt- Chitfe, Fyt-, Hide, Fast, Ny*.rU.. BrU^lMajt-u^. CHAPTER IV FANS OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES IN any survey of the industrial arts of the more primi- tive nations or peoples, three facts must be taken into consideration: ist, climatic conditions; 2nd, the natural products indigenous to the country, and the outcome of its climatic conditions ; 3rd, the degree of the intellectual development of its inhabitants. The study of any particular branch of art pre- supposes some acquaintance with the history of the people among whom the art was practised. In con- 1 V sidering, however, the art of primitive peoples, this * matter of history and association plays but a minor part. Pictorial storiation is practically non-existent, individualism is lost in the collective racial influence. Moreover, the raw material of industry is precisely the kind readiest to hand, and generally demanding the minimum of skill in its working. The fans of primitive or more or less uncivilised peoples may there- fore be divided into three or four distinct types: ist, the natural palm-leaf fans, common in most palm-producing countries ; 2nd, the plaited rush-, grass-, or cane-fans, these being generally of the spatula, or half-halberd shape; 3rd, hide-fans, which usually take the form of round or oval screens; 4th, feather-fans, the character being necessarily determined by the kind of feathers employed. 77 HISTORY OF THE FAN It will readily be perceived that the earliest and simplest forms are those supplied ready to hand by Nature herself, viz. palm-leaf fans. These may be divided into two great classes. In the one, the leaf is set symmetrically on the stem ; in the other, it is fixed laterally ; in both instances the natural stem forms the handle. An excellent example of the first named is the large fan made from the leaf of the Pritchardia pacifica, used only by the great chiefs of the Fiji Islands. In this the leaf is cut to the shape of a reversed heart, bound round the border by a wisp, the ends of the fronds being arranged in tufts at intervals round the edge of the fan, forming an agreeable contrast to the simple radiating lines of the leaf. In the second class of palm-fan, one side of the leaf is either cut away or bent laterally, the large leaves of the Palmyra or Talipot palms being used, cut short, the edges worked round with an applied border of thin strips of the leaf. This form appears to be ubiquitous; it is common, not only to primitive peoples, but also to the more civilised countries of the East. In India it appears both in the form of the smaller hand-fans and the larger pankhas, often richly decorated in colour, with inserted plaques of mica, or other ornamental device. The art of plaiting with rush, straw, grass, cane, roots, and other flexible materials is one of the very earliest practised by man ; we find it in constant use amongst savage tribes, who employ the process for mats, baskets, various coverings for the person, and other articles of personal and domestic use ; both the technical skill and the aesthetic effect being often of a very high order. It will at once be perceived that this process is especially suited to the fan, which demands, above all things, lightness of construction ; the plaited fan is therefore the most usual form in that vast group of islands known as Polynesia, as well as in most other countries situated within the equatorial belt. 78 FANS OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES The principle of plaiting is to commence from the stick or handle, which generally extends two-thirds of the distance along the blade or leaf of the fan. The stick is generally of wood, occasionally of ivory, and in some instances both substances are employed, the handle often elaborately carved. The most usual shape is that of a spear cut crosswise and shortened : the ordinary principle of form - development is followed, from extreme attenuation lengthwise, to extreme width and shortness, the form of the lower border varying from an acute angle to a semicircle, the top varying from straight line to arched or curved. The plaiting is of varying degrees of fineness according to the character of the leaf, straw, cane, or fibre employed. The patterning also varies, occasionally straw of a different colour (black or brown) being introduced. This type of fan is found in the Marquesas Islands (South Pacific), the Hervey (Cook) Islands, Solomon Islands, Samoa, and the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands. A large plaited broad rush-fan appears in the Horni- man Museum, made and presented by Queen Kapiolani of the Hawaiian Islands (illustrated p. 272) ; a similarly formed fan appears in the same collection from Tahiti. In some examples from Samoa in the British Museum collection, the 79 HISTORY OF THE FAN shapes are slightly more varied, remarkably so in one instance in which the top border assumes a pointed or zigzag pattern. The kite shape also is found in various forms. (Page 81, Nos. i, 2, 3.) In the Hawaiian group a spatula shape appears, this also being HAWAIIAN ISLANDS developed to its utmost limit of breadth or width, the handles of plaited hair, in two colours, forming a pattern. In British Guiana a curious fan (warri warri) is used, formed of strips of the Ita palm, having no stem, but simply a rolled edge, either single or double (crosswise), forming a finish to the leaf or blade, and affording a grip for the hand. The size of these fans varies from six to fifteen inches. A development of the above form is used as bellows by the natives of Ecuador and Peru ; the double handle slightly longer, the forms varied to leaf and shield shape. In India, also, the two-handled bellows-fan is used, made of strips of the leaf-stalk of the Tucuma palm. In the British Museum is a curious little fan having only a loop for handle, formed of plaited reed (Iturite) of two colours, brown and black. (Page 81, No. 8.) In the hide-fans common on the western border of Africa, the form approaches that of a circular screen, set on a wooden handle. In these the ornamentation is either formed of the natural markings of the hide, or an ' applique ' of leather, painted white, and cut to various perforated patterns, so as to show a bright vermilion feather stuff in the perforations ; the three colours, the brown or black of the hide, the 80 , a, 3, ii, u. SAMOA. <, 5. BRITISH GUIANA. 6, 7, 9. ECUADOR AND PERU. 9, 10. SOUTH-EASTERN PACIFIC. 8l HISTORY OF THE FAN white leather, and the vermilion perforations forming a very effective con- trast. Examples from Nigeria appear in the British Museum collection. A smaller fan of goatskin is in the Horniman Museum. These hide-fans form part of the fantastic death-dance costumes of Old Calabar. Feathers, although constantly employed as ornaments to the person, are less commonly used for fans than might generally be supposed, especially in countries where bird life is abundant. Amongst the Blackfoot nation of North American Indians, eagles' feathers were used as a standard of valour at the advent of the white man, and the capture of eagles was regarded as a sacred ceremony. In the British Museum is a fan of these eagles' feathers, with a handle covered with coarse linen of a printed pattern ; to the tip of each feather is affixed a small pink fluffy feather, thus forming a pink border to the top of the fan, the border being repeated at the top of the handle. This was pro- cured from ' Little Ears,' a Blood Indian. A similar fan, minus the handle, appears in the same collection ; in this instance the tips of the feathers are ornamented with little tails made of hair, varied at the lower ends by white fur. In consequence of a dream that appeared to a Blood chief named Bears' Lodge, a dance was instituted in which these fans were waved, and whistles made of eagles' bones were carried and used. (Illustrated opposite.) Ceremonial fans were employed by the Indians of the Great West ; we have an account of the visit of a Taensas chief on the banks of the Lower Mississippi to Le Sieur de La Salle in 1682: 'The Chief conde- scended to visit La Salle at his camp ; a favour which he would by no means have granted, had the visitors been Indians. A master of cere- monies and six attendants preceded him, to clear the path and prepare the place of meeting. When all was ready, he was seen advancing clothed in a white robe, and preceded by two men bearing white fans, while a third displayed a disc of burnished copper, doubtless to represent 82 7Wo small 'Palm Farts. We^tJi/^-taL.. CvCKajze Foil. ^itA-injor-^Con^. FYy WAisb, 7aAiti. Fa^Tv ofEaab-s Feathers. Nm-tLArru-j'Ua^JnJLan, FANS OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES the Sun, his ancestor, or, as others will have it, his elder brother.' 1 It is safe to assume that these fans were of feathers, and the incident is an evidence that the use of the fan in high ceremonial was universal, and common to both East and West. There still remains the cockade form of fan, found amongst the West African tribes ; an example appearing in the British Museum collection, of paper, with primitive painted ornaments in black, red, and yellow, alternated with inscription ; the fan measuring some twenty inches in diameter. A most interesting example of hide appears in the Horniman Museum, taken from the king's palace at Benin in 1897. This, doubtless, from its size and the cumbrous nature of its material, as well as the foregoing example, was waved by the attendants of some highly placed personage, probably the king. The square or oblong flag-fan is made by the natives of the Niger settlements of West Africa. An example in the Victoria and Albert Museum is of plaited grass with strips of the natural shades of brown and yellow, and others stained red and black ; the handle is covered with reddish-brown leather, fringed along the side of the leaf, the fan edged with the same material. The appearance of similar decorative motifs in countries widely separate opens up an in- teresting field of speculation. Some explanation, however, of the fact of the cockade (though in itself, together with the flag form, a simple device) appearing among the West African tribes, may be found in the fact that the natives of the interior of West Africa were 1 Francis Parkman, La SalU and the Discovery of the Great West. 83 HISTORY OF THE FAN long exposed to the influence of the Mohammedan culture of the Western Sudan ; the races were to some extent intermingled, and a close commercial relationship has been maintained during a long period. Fly -whisks are obviously articles of necessity throughout the countries of the Torrid Zone.1 These are formed either of feathers, of vegetable fibre, of the hair of the larger animals, of hempen string, or other materials. These instruments occasionally acquire a sacred significance ; Blondel affirms that they were common in Peru and Mexico before the Spanish conquest, and, together with the fan, were used also as a symbol of authority, the handles being adorned with the precious stone ' theoatz- ehuaquetzalli.' A species of fly-whisk, formed of dried grass, is used as a war fetish by the natives of the Gold Coast ; in some instances an iron bell is attached, carried and rung by the magician in front of the warriors. Sticks and also fan handles bound with feathers are used as propitiatory offerings to the gods by the natives of the South-Eastern Pacific. (Page 81, Nos. 9, 10.) In the Hawaiian Islands feather wands (Kahili) are carried as a symbol of rank ; these appear to have been originally fly-whisks, and are formed of the tail feathers of various birds. Six examples are included in the British Museum collection, the handles formed of ivory alternated with horn, the extremity of the handle being formed of the bone of an enemy. A long fly-whisk from Hawaii appears in the same collection, formed of the neck feathers of the cock, of varying colours, white, orange, and brown, with black tip ; the handle of wood, bound round with black and buff cane. 1 Miss Kingsley refers to their use at Egaja, ' for the purpose of battling with the evening cloud of sand-flies.' 84 FANS OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES The most primitive form of fly-whisk is that from the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, made of grass fibre, bound to a stick, and resembling a rough besom. Vegetable fibre of various kinds would appear, indeed, J to be the material most commonly employed for these articles, being, doubtless, the readiest substance to hand. A remark- able series of fly-whisks from Tahiti, formed of fibre, were presented to the British Museum by Sir W. C. Trevelyan, Bart. ; in these, the handles (of wood) are finely plaited half- way with fibre of two colours, the rest of the handle of a spiral form, the head carved to a fantastic shape. An interesting fly-whisk from the Tonga Islands is formed of cocoa-nut fibre, finely plaited at its junction with the wooden handle ; small turquoise, black, and white beads, are affixed to the plaited portion, these forming an extremely effective contrast to the rich red brown of the fibre. In Samoa, enormous fly-whisks are formed of this material, sometimes affixed to a handle of wood, and |v> occasionally bound round with the same material to form the handle. (Page 81, Nos. u, 12.) A curious fly-whisk from Tahiti is of twisted fibre, the handle being formed of two birds' wing-bones bound together, with a portion of plaited fibre in two colours form- ing the extremity of the stem at its junction with the whisk. The Matabeles employ fly-whisks of horse-hair, both white and black. An example of white horse-hair bound with brass, fixed in a handle of cane, and also one of black hair, with the handle formed of plaited brass wire, are to be seen in the British Museum. 85 HISTORY OF THE FAN A similar fly-whisk of black horse-hair is in the same collection ; the handle of steel wire, bound round a double leather thong, the extremity forming a loop ornamented by blue glass beads. These are used by the elders (Elmoru) of the East African Protectorate. Black horse-hair forms the material of fly-whisks used by the natives of the Upper Nile. In the example illustrated the hair is set in an open-shaped piece of leather, with a long bone handle. In Abyssinia, also, fly-whisks formed of the tails of the smaller animals are employed. An example occurs in the India Museum, the hair dyed red and yellow, the handle of silver parcel-gilt. Probably the most curious of all fans and fan-like objects in use among primitive peoples is the so-called Ghost Fan of South Celebes (Malay Archipelago). This mysterious object consists of a triangular arrangement at the end of a stick, of fine spun red stuff embellished with a bordering of gold tinsel, together with spangles or hanging ornaments along its lower edge. Around the stick is tightly twisted a piece of paper, probably containing an incantation. An example occurs in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin, referred to and illustrated in Der Fdcher, Georg Buss. (See p. 1 06.) 86 3 SS ■i I z> s i i I CHAPTER V THE FLABELLUM AND EARLY FEATHER-FAN THE Christian Church was quick to perceive the utility of the fan as an instrument of religious ceremonial, imparting to this object a mysterious importance, a sacerdotal distinction, preserving and shielding it from common use ; it has even been claimed that this appropriation was instituted by the Apostles themselves, Bishop Suarez attempting to substantiate this by an appeal to an apocryphal liturgy attributed to St. James. The earliest recognised notice, however, of the fiabellum as a liturgical ornament is in the Apostolical Constitutions, which direct that after the oblation, before and during the prayer of consecration, two deacons are to stand, one on either side of the altar, holding a fan made of thin membrane (parchment), or of peacocks' feathers, or of fine linen, and quietly drive away the flies and other small insects, that they may not stick against the vessels; this use of the fiabellum being derived, not from the ritual of the synagogue of the Jews, but from that of the Pagan temples. Butler {Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt) quotes a similar rubric from the liturgy of St. Clement. The same author refers also to flabella waved by the deacons in the Syrian Jacobite, and probably also in the Coptic, rite for the ordination of a priest at laying on of hands — they appeared at solemn 87 ANGEL WAVING A FLABELLUM (From the Book of Kells.) HISTORY OF THE FAN festivals and at regular celebrations of mass.1 On Good Friday, also, they were used at the consecrations of Chrism — seven deacons holding flabella, walking on either side of the holy oil when carried in procession. Many evidences of its early adoption by the Latin Church are extant. Moschus [Prat. Spirit uale, § 150) cites an occurrence showing its employment in the time of Pope Agapetus, a.d. 535, in which a deacon, who had falsely accused his bishop, was re- moved from the altar when he was holding the fan in the presence of the Pope, because he hindered the descent of the Holy Spirit on the gifts. This same author {Prat. Spiritnale, § 196), in narrating how some shepherd boys near Apamea were imitating the celebration of the Eucharist in childish sport, is careful to mention that two of the children stood on either side of the celebrant, vibrating their handkerchiefs like fans,2 thus showing that the use of the flabellum was general even at this early period. In a letter of St. Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours, c. 1098, accompany- ing the present of a flabellum made to a friend, its use and mystic import are explained — the flies, representing the temptations of the devil, are to be driven away by the Catholic faith. Gradually the waving of the flabellum acquired a deeper symbolic meaning — it was held to signify the wafting of divine influence upon the ceremony, the movements to and fro symbolising the quivering of the wings of the Seraphim ; hence we find repre- (From Buller.) ° r ' r 1 In the liturgy of St. Chrysostom, after the Eenedictus — ' Supra sancta ventilet reverenter flabello. Si desit flabellum, velo idem praestat.' (Divina Afissa S. Joan. Chrysostomi, Goar. Ritual' Graecorum. p. 76.) 5 Smith, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. 88 <w> <t? <# <S> U SILVER PROCESSIONAL FLABELLUM THE FLABELLUM & EARLY FEATHER-FAN sentatives of the Seraphim playing an important part in its ornamentation. In the Book of Kells we have a representation of the four evangelists in which the Seraphic symbol of St. Matthew is figured by the crossed flabella, each having a pair of bells with triple hammers; the remaining three evangelists being represented by the usual symbols of the Lion in the centre, and the Bull and Eagle at the lower corners. Germanus (Neale, Eastern Church, p. 396) goes even further, and holds that the vibration of the nabellum typifies the tremor and astonish- ment of the angels at our Lord's Passion. In a Byzantine fresco at Nekrdsi (Caucasus), of a date uncertain but some- what late, an open sanctuary is represented with two angelic winged deacons waving seraphic flabella around the head of the second person of the Trinity. We have, then, in these flabella, two distinct types — the one composed of some yielding material such as vellum or peacocks' feathers, the handles usually of ivory ; the other rigid, and formed of metal, either silver or silver gilt, this latter being essentially a processional fan ; both being used in ceremonial processions and celebrations of the mass. Metal flabella also divide themselves into two classes — the large-handled processional fan, and the short hand-fan ; an example of the latter is given from Butler, and consists of a circular disc of metal decorated with two rude figures of the Seraphim interspersed with Romanesque ornament. C0PTIC , Actual specimens of ancient flabella are almost non-existent, although a few have been preserved on the Continent ; one of the most famous being that of the abbey church of Tournus, on the Sa6ne, south of Chalon, at present in the Carrand collection, Museo Nazionale, Florence. m 89 HISTORY OF THE FAN This remarkable example, which may be taken as a characteristic type, is formed of a strip of vellum folded a la cocarde, painted on both sides with figures of St. Philibert and other saints divided by conventional trees. The outer borders consist of a continuous scroll of Romanesque ornament interspersed with figures of animals. Latin hexameters and pentameters are inscribed on the three concentric borders of the fan, as follows : — >J< FLAMINIS HOC DONUM, REGNATOR SUMME POLORUM, OBLATUM PURO PECTORE SUME LIBENS. VIRGO PARENS XPI VOTO CELEBRARIS EODEM, HIC COLERIS PARITER, TU FILIBERTE SACER. >$< SUNT DUO QUAE MODICUM CONFERT ESTATE FLABELLUM ; INFESTAS ABIGIT MUSCAS ET MITIGAT AESTUS, ET SINE DAT TEDIO GUSTARE MUNUS CIBORUM. PROPTEREA CALIDUM QUI VULT TRANSIRE PER ANNUM, ET TUTUS CUPIT AB ATRIS EXISTERE MUSCIS, OMNI SE STUDEAT AESTATE MUNIRE FLABELLO. >J< HOC DECUS EXIMIUM PULCHRO MODERAMINE GESTUM, CONDECET IN SACRO SEMPER ADESSE LOCO; NAMQUE SUO VOLUCRES INFESTAS FLAMINE PELLIT, ET STRICTIM MOTUS LONGIUS IRE FACIT. HOC QUOQUE FLABELLUM TRANQUILLAS EXCITAT AURAS, ,ESTUS DUM SEVIT VENTUM FACIT ATQUE SERENUM, FUGAT ET OBSCENAS IMPORTUNASQUE VOLUCRES. The handle is formed of four cylinders of white bone, two being ornamented with semi-naturalistic vine foliage running spirally round the stem, the two lower fluted. These cylinders are united by nodes or pommels, tinted green ; on the middle node the inscription michel ■ m •, on the upper >J< iohel me scae fecit in honore mariae. The stem is surmounted by a capital with four figures of saints, whose names appear on the node immediately beneath : s • maria • s • agn • s • filib • s • pet. On the capital rests the guard or box which receives the flabellum when closed ; the four sides are of elaborately carved white bone with green-tinted borders ; the front and back panels, betraying evidence of a different hand, 90 The Pla&clltun ^7ourm^f.lKc^^f. *A*Uls*c A*rx lon-al* , Fit Photo fy Alimari. or-ervcc. 'iwsr- Photo by Aiinari. SM. Wa v ^^^> s:^r ^ ^%v;; «^ •7 V A «fc< i I.: £6 £jSj£2J55$. KA? K& £5-: H *V * /> .»> ~ --1 -<\v t ^ .«*• TkeFlabelluTn of Toutvzils, J^t-a^L. Ai*i*rct? Na^zi-oruxjlc ,7Utrr£.n^e, THE FLABELLUM & EARLY FEATHER-FAN are now in the Musde de Cluny, Paris, and consist of arabesques of foliage with figures, birds, animals, etc., modelled with great spirit. The two lateral panels or faces form the richest portion of the fan, and are carved with six subjects from the Eclogues of Virgil. Three seated senators with other figures, two shepherds with oxen ; three shepherds, two of whom are playing pipes, some sheep in the foreground ; a seated shepherd blowing a horn ; another shepherd with oxen and goats ; a shepherd and satyr with dog and goats ; and a seated shepherd with two oxen. The modelling is somewhat rude and archaic, but extremely rich in decorative effect. One edge of the fan is fixed in the box, the other is attached to one of the lateral panels, which, in order to open the fan, is drawn over and attached to the reversed side by means of a cord. Both sides are figured in colours in Du Sommerard's work Les Arts du Moyen Age. Of other flabella which exist, one is preserved in the Dominican Monastery of Prouille, in the diocese of Toulouse ; another, with a handle of silver, was formerly at St. Victor, near Marseilles. In the British Museum is a portion of an ivory handle of a flabellum, French, of the twelfth century, about twelve inches in length, finely carved with figures of the twelve Apostles and emblems of the Evangelists. In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a similar fragment, but smaller, carved with compartments of animals, mythical beasts, monsters, etc. ; these probably formed the two divisions of one single flabellum. These handles were sometimes square-shaped, as in the instance of the fragment in the Salting collection at present in the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is also French, of the fourteenth century, and is carved on each of its sides with figures of saints in niches, with crocketed arches. A portion of the cylindrical stem of a flabellum or aspergillum, probably French of the twelfth century, is in the British Museum. This represents the occupations of the twelve months of the year in three bands, 9i HISTORY OF THE FAN as follows : January, a two-headed Janus looking in opposite directions ; February, a figure seated before a fire ; March, cutting trees with a hatchet ; April, gathering blossoms ; May, an equestrian figure with hawk ; June, a mower with sickle and hooked stick ; July, a mower with scythe ; August, a reaper with sickle ; September, thrashing wheat ; October, sowing corn ; November, killing a pig; December, pouring wine into a cask. The figures are separated from each other by trees, and the three bands by rings ornamented with foliage and zigzag patterns with semi-rosettes, and at top and bottom are rings with half-defaced inscriptions. There is also in the same collection a capital of morse ivory for the handle of a flabellum, North German, twelfth century. These instruments figure repeatedly in inventories of church and abbey property. Butler quotes from one at St. Riquier, near Abbeville, in 831, 'a silver fan for chasing flies from the sacrifice.' At Amiens, in 1250, there existed a fan for a similar purpose, ' flabellum factum de serico et auro ad repellendas muscas et immunda.' In 1363 La Sainte Chapelle possessed 'duo flabella vulgariter nuncupata muscalia, ornata perlis'; in 1376, ' ij flabella, Gallice esmouchoirs, ornata de perlis.' In the sacrist rolls of Ely, ' Item, j flabello empt. ad Aurifabrum, yd. Item, in pari flabellorum pro le Colpeyt empt. 6d.' A Salisbury inventory mentions two fans of vellum or other material.1 The Chapel of St. Faith in the crypt of old St. Paul's possessed, in 1298, a muscatorium or fly-whip of peacocks' feathers.2 There is record of a gift to York Minster, between the years 1393 and 1413, of a silver-gilt handle for a flabellum.3 In 1346, Hamo, Bishop of Rochester, presented to the cathedral ' unum flabellum de serico cum virga eburnea.'4 In the inventory of the Chapel of West Exeter, Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, ' i. muscifugium 1 ' a.d. 1 214, Ornamenta Ecclesie Sarum, inventa in Thesauraria. ij. flabella de serico et pergameno.' 2 Dugdale, History of Si. Paul's. 3 ' Manubrium flabelli argentum deauratum, ex dono Joh. Newton, thesaurarii, cum ymagine Episcopi in fine enamelyd, pond. v. unc' * ficgistruvi Roff. p. 554. 92 3 3 . 4 S .. 5i ^ J ^ 1 i 1 1 1*3 k ft k THE FLABELLUM & EARLY FEATHER-FAN de pecock.'1 In the enumeration of the valuable effects of the deceased Queen Isabella, daughter of Philippe le Bel, and consort of Edward n., the following entry appears : ' De Capella, Duo flagella pro muscis fugandis.'2 In England the flabellum was in use even in remote parishes. In the churchwarden's accounts at Walderswick, Suffolk, in 1493, is an entry of IVd. for 'a bessume of pekoks fethers.' Although the flabellum is very rarely represented in illuminated MSS., in the Book of Kells we find miniatures of angels waving these instruments ; in the Gospel of Treves (eighth century) is a conjoined evangelistic, symbolic figure holding a small flabellum in one hand and a eucharistic lance in the other. In a Hiberno-Saxon MS. of the eighth century a figure of St. Matthew is seen holding in his hand a flabellum. In the public library at Rouen are two representations of the use of this instrument ; in the one, a thirteenth-century missal, formerly belonging to the abbey of Jumieges, the fan is held by the deacon in front of the altar at which the priest officiates ; in the other, it is waved over the head of the priest as he elevates the wafer : this in a pontifical of the church of Rheims, thirteenth century. A psalter in Greek, British Museum, additional MSS. 19,352, gives a miniature of an angel waving a large flabellum over the head of David who is asleep ; another instance occurs in a thirteenth- century Service-Book in the Barberini Library, given by Paciandi.3 Representations in printed books are still more rare. In Barclay's Ship of Fools of the World, 1509, FROM A GREEK PSALTER. (British Museum.) 1 Journal of the Aniueofogical Association, vol. xxvi. * Archozoiogical Journal, vol. v. 3 Pauli Paciandi de Umbellae Gestatione Commentarius, Romae, 1752, P- lxiii. 93 HISTORY OF THE FAN we find, however, a woodcut illustration of a spectacled bibliophile wearing cap and bells, seated among his books, holding in his hand a flabellum of feathers, saying : ' Attamen in magno per mc servantur honore : Pulueris et cariem, plumatis tergo flabellis.'1 the word Jlabe/lis being here applied to the ordinary hand-brush or duster. By the end of the sixteenth century the flabellum had fallen into complete disuse, its original purpose having been long abandoned or forgotten, although as late as 1688 Randle Holmes, Academy of Armory, refers to ' the flap or fann to drive away flies from the chalice.' Its sole reminiscence in the west is in the large flabella of peacocks' feathers carried at solemn festivals in procession before the Pope. In the Greek Church, the fan is still delivered to the deacon at ordination as the symbol of his sacred office. |^ From the period of the final break up of the Roman Empire to that of the Crusades the general use of the fan was discontinued in Europe, and was probably only adopted by highly placed personages ; during these early periods, however, it was still the religious fly-flap or flabellum, (Tdmouchoir, and Blondel infers from the circumstance of Etienne Boileau not referring to it in his Livre des Mcstiers (1200), that even at this time it no longer served any domestic purpose except in very rare instances. The earliest English reference to the fan appears to be the following : — ' In the thirtieth year of King Edward 1., precept was given to Nicholas 1 ' But yet I have them in great reverence And honour, saving them from filth and ordure By often brusshyng and moche dylygence.' 94 THE FLABELLUM & EARLY FEATHER-FAN Pycot, Chamberlain, of the Guildhall of London that he should cause to be sold all pledges for any debt whatsoever then in his custody. ' In an inventory of pledges sold for arrears on the King's Tallage, 31 Edward 1., 1303. One fan (value not stated) taken from Henry Gyleberd of the ward of Basseshawe for 2s. 8d., which he owes of arrears of the fifteenth.' ' The oldest existing Christian fan, and the most famous of the few fans of which we have any record during the Middle Ages, is that which has become identified with Theodolinda, Queen of the Lombards, the saintly princess, who possessed a nail of the holy cross which was ultimately used as a setting to the Iron Crown of the kings of Lombardy. This fan is preserved as a sacred relic in the Cathedral of Monza near Milan. Superstition has invested it with magical powers. Pilgrimages are made to Monza by village maidens, often from a long distance, on a certain day of the year, as the act of touching it is believed to facili- tate and promote their marriage projects. It is of the cockade shape, formed of vellum, of the beautiful purple hue we find in contemporary manuscripts ; it is decorated with an alternating diaper of Romanesque ornament in gold and silver, and round its outer border on either side is the following inscription in Latin hexameters, which is given by Mr. W. Burges, Archceological Journal, vol. xiv., on the one side : >J< ' Ut sis conspectu praeclara et cara venusta, Hac rogo defendens solem requiesce sub umbra, Has soror obtutu depictas arte figuras Praelegeris flavido ut decoreris casta colore.' and on the reverse, now much obliterated : ' Pulchrior ut facie dulcis videaris amica . . . fervores solis . . . Me retinere manu Ulfeda (?) poscente memento . . . splendoris . . .' 1 Memorials of London and London Life in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries, by Henry Thomas Riley. 95 HISTORY OF THE FAN Mr. Burges has pointed out that the form of the letters of the inscription, which are Roman with slight Rustic variations, as also the purple dye, are sufficiently similar to contemporary manuscripts of St. Augustine of the end of the sixth century. -€3=>« 5=3 Eg THE MONZA FLABELLUM. Details. The case which accompanies the fan is constructed on the same principle as the handle of the Tournus flabellum, although less elongated. It is of wood, covered with silver, the wooden part probably modern, made to the original shape, with the old silver used again. The length of the case with handle is 15^ inches, the diameter of the leaf 10 inches. 96 i i x2 15 I THE FLABELLUM & EARLY FEATHER-FAN The side flap was originally fastened to the fan, and drawn round until it formed a complete circle, as in the instance of the Tournus flabellum. With respect to the identity of the original owner of this fan, although the claim which has been made for its association with Queen Theodolinda cannot be substantiated, its identification with any well- defined personage is equally difficult. Who was Ulfeda? Mr. Burges states with reference to this name that it is by no means the most legible part of the inscription — that he has been able to discover no one so named who lived during this period. M. de Linas points out that the name Ulfeda is a variant of the Saxon Elpheid, which the marvellous cloisonne- fibula, exhumed, as is said, from a Carlovingian sepulchre at Wittislingen (Bavaria), gives under the softened form of Ufeila. This Monza fan is not mentioned in an inventory of the treasury in 1275; in that of 1353 the following, however, occurs : ' Item, fabella, seu orata una argenti facta ad modum unius maze cum manica ligni ligata in argento.' M. de Linas infers from the fact of the extremity of the handles being provided with a ring, that it was not a liturgic fan, and certainly this circumstance, together with the smallness of its size, would appear to be a sufficient evidence of its secular use ; in any event, and whatever its original use, this fan, together with that of Tournus, must be accounted among the most precious relics preserved to us from that dim and dark, but extremely fascinating period. The rigid flag-fan, which appears to have been in intermittent use in Europe from the early centuries of our era, consists of an oblong parallelogram with a handle fitted to one of its longer sides. These were made either of plaited straw of various colours, of linen painted and n 97 HISTORY OF THE FAN embroidered, of parchment or vellum, or of silk, woven or embroidered, often with lozenge-shaped diapering. The earliest examples remaining to us are Coptic or Saracenic. M. Robert Forrer in his Reallexikon figures two which were obtained from the cemetery of Akhmin, the Greek Panopolis, presumably belonging to the fourth-sixth century. Of these, one is finely plaited of brown, red, and black straw, with a representation of four hearts encircling a cross, the other of a reticulated diapered pattern with a border of linen. A similar flag-fan of plaited straw appears in the Berlin Museum : this example, also, is probably Coptic. M. Charles de Linas, quoting from the life of St. Fulgentius, sixth century, affirms that the Bishop of Ruspa, whilst he was a monk and even an abbot, occupied his leisure hours in copying Holy Writ or in plaiting ' fly-flaps ' of palm leaves. This same author ' figures a flag-fan from an engraved glass vase, exhumed from the catacombs, and now preserved in the library of the Vatican, representing the Virgin Mother seated with the infant Saviour on her lap, a deacon behind agitating a rectangular flabellum fixed in a lateral handle. The zigzag ornamentation indicates that this, also, was formed of plaited straw. In the Observances of the Augustinian Priory at Barnwell, Cambridge, ' The Fraterer ought to provide mats and rushes to strew the Frater and the alleys of the Cloister at the Frater door, and frequently to renew them ; in summer to throw flowers, mint, and fennel into the air to make a sweet odour, and to provide fans.' ' Muscatoria in estate providere.'2 The most remarkable example, however, of this banner form is on a diptich of ivory offered by Charles the Bald to the abbey of Saint- 1 Men/e de I'Art Chretien, 1883. Les Disques crucileres, le Flabellum, et l'umbella. - Harl. MSS. 3601, the date 1295-6, edited by J. W. Clark. 98 &/vtU~ Fh*w, ALL* E~thr^oLoo^^L A4u^C4^m,, ~F$ t,r Li?\.. THE FLABELLUM & EARLY FEATHER-FAN Corneille de Compiegne, and at present in the Cabinet de Mddailles at Paris. On the inferior compartment of the diptich is a eunuch (?) holding with both hands a flabellum apparently of metal, the handle long, thick at the end, and engraved with lines representing masonry ; the top in the form of a turret, from which hangs a cord. The leaf, in all probability embroidered, has a plain broad border enclosing a laurel wreath. The banner form of fan became fashionable with the Venetian women of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These were of two kinds : the one, of a more ornate character, was used by matrons ; the other, abanico di novia, of a delicate whiteness, used only by engaged maidens or the newly married. An example of the latter occurs in the portrait of the painter's daughter Lavinia, by Titian, in the Dresden Gallery, probably painted in 1555. Titian painted this favourite daughter some eighteen years later ; in this portrait she carries a feather-fan, the sign of Venetian nobility, Titian having been, in the interval, created a Count Palatine by the Emperor Charles v. Authentic examples of these flag-fans are exceedingly rare. A richly embroidered Venetian fan of the sixteenth century is in the collection of the Grand Duke Frederick of Baden ; another, also Italian, has a large oval medallion with ornaments of silver and brown, and is in the collection of Mr. G. J. Rosenberg of Karlsruhe ; a third, abanico di novia, of white vellum enriched with Venetian lace of the sixteenth century, is referred to by Blondel as being in the possession of Madame Achille Jubinal of Paris. These fans were probably introduced into the western countries of 99 FROM AN IVORY DIPTICH. (Cabinet de Medailles, Paris.) HISTORY OF THE FAN Europe by the returning Crusaders. They never, apparently, obtained any great vogue except in Italy; they continued, however, in intermittent use until the close of the sixteenth century, when, together with feather, tuft, and cockade fans, they gradually gave place to the modern folding-fan which had by this time made its appearance in Portugal from the Far East. From the fourteenth century onwards, the history of the fan becomes more clear, and Blondel quotes a number of French inventories in which the fan figures — that of the Comptesse Mahaut d'Artois (1316), an dmouchoir with silver handle ; of Queen Cldmence (1328), an dmouchoir of silk brocade ; and also in the will or testament of Queen Johanne of Evreux (1372), a jewelled dmouchoir costing five golden francs. l The cockade form, a la cocarde, has been in use during all periods subsequent to its first introduction from the East in the early centuries of our era. We have already referred at some length to the cockade flabella at Tournus and Monza. In an inventory of Charles v. of France, 1380, we read of ' un esmouchouer rond, qui se ploye, en yvoire, aux armes de France et de Navarre, a un manche d'ybenus.'2 During the fourteenth century, the long-handled fiabellum was also in use, waved by attendants as at Thebes and Rome. In the inventory above quoted (Charles v.) occurs — 'Trois bannieres, ou esmouchoers, de cuir ouvrtf, dont les deux ont les manches d'argent dorez.' ' Deux bannieres de France, pour esmoucher le Roy quand il est a Table, semees de fleurs de lys broddes de perles.'3 The feather-fan, also, was in use during this reign, as we learn from a curious entry in a letter of the Queen— alluding to a criminal prose- cution against some manufacturer of spurious coin — ' Le suppliant trouva 1 Un esmouchior de drap d'or, a fleur-de-lys, escartele des armes de France et de Navarre a un baston d'yvoire et de geste, pris£ v Francs d'or. — Du Cange. * Viollet-le-Duc. s Blondel. IOO THE FLABELLUM & EARLY FEATHER-FAN d'aventure un esventour de plumes, duquel il esceuta le feu — ou Ton faisoit la ditte fausse monnoye.' ' The feather and tuft fans in use from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries and later were formed of the plumes of the peacock, the ostrich, and the paroquet, dyed various colours : the number of the feathers varied from three to twenty or more, and were arranged so as to imbricate the plumes in the gradation of their natural growth. These were set in handles of carved ivory and the more precious metals, generally silver, and were often richly jewelled, and suspended from the girdle by a slender chain. Of their cost we have a hint in Marston's satires : ' How can she keepe a lazie serving-man And buy a hoode and silver-handled fan With fortie pound ? ' Silver was probably the material of the handle of Mistress Bridget's fan in the theft of which Falstaff and his Ancient were implicated. Falstaff. And when Mistress Bridget Lost the handle of her fan, I took 't upon Mine honour thou hadst it not. Pistol. Didst thou not share ? hadst thou not fifteen pence ? References to the silver-handled fan occur commonly in old plays : ' She hath a fan with a short silver handle, About the length of a barber's syringe.' The Floire, 1610. ' All your plate, Vasco, is the silver handle of Your old prisoner's fan.' Love and Honour, Sir W. Davenant, 1649. ' Another he Her silver handled fan would gladly be.' In Marston, Scourge of Villainie, lib. 111. sat. 8. The above references are to fans of the ordinary sort ; the cost of the more precious fans of history was considerable. Brant&me (c. 1590) refers Henry F. Holt, Journal of the Archaologual Association, vol. xxvi. (1870). IOI HISTORY OF THE FAN to the fan of Queen Eleanor with its mirror all ornamented with precious stones of great value, and also to the new-year's gift of Queen Margaret to Queen Louise of Lorraine — a jewelled fan of mother of pearl of such beauty and richness that it was valued at more than fifteen hundred crowns,1 a sum equal to a thousand pounds of our present money. The employment of the fan as fire-screen is indicated by the new-year's gift to Queen Mary of England in 1556, when she received 'seven fannes to kepe the heate of the fyer, of strawe, the one of white silke.' Queen Elizabeth's partiality for fans is historic, and it is upon record that she regarded a fan as a suitable gift for a queen. Leicester's new-year's gift in 1574 is recorded : 'A fan of white feathers set in a handle of gold, garnished on one side with two very fair emeralds, and fully garnished with diamonds and rubies ; the other side garnished with rubies and diamonds, and on each side a white bear [his cognisance] and two pearls hanging, a lion ramping with a white muzzled bear at his foot.' Among the new-year's gifts, 1588-9: — ' By the Countess of Bath, a fanne of Swanne downe, with a maze of gilene velvet, ymbrodered with seed pearles and a very small chayne of silver gilte, and in the middest a border on both sides of seed pearles, sparks of rubyes and emerods, and thereon a monster of gold, the head and breast mother of pearles. ' By a Gentleman unknown, a fanne of sundry collored fethers, with a handle of aggets garnished with silver gilte.' In 1589, 'a fanne of ffethers, white and redd, the handle of golde, inameled with a halfe moone of mother of perles, within that a halfe moon garnished with sparks of dyamonds, and a fewe seede perles on th' one side, 1 Elle donna a la reyne Louise de Lorraine une fois pour ses estreines ung esventail faict de nacre de perles, enrichy de pierreries et grosses perles, si beau et si riche, qu'on disoit estre un chef d'ceuvre, et l'estimoit on a plus de quinze cens escus. — Pierre de Bourdeilles, Seigneur de Brantome, M'emoires des dames illustrces de France. I02 FetLtAer Hondas c r aen. , QvLeenAruie. AFZ-CJiM **,*/. THE FLABELLUM & EARLY FEATHER-FAN having her majestie's picture within it : and on the back-side a device with a crowe over it.' ' Geven by Sir Frauncis Drake.' In 1599:— ' By Mrs. Wingfeilde, mother of the maydes, four ruffes of lawne and a fanne.' From a letter of Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sydney, December 13, 1595, we learn that 'upon Thursday she dined at Kew, my lord keeper's (Sir John Packering) house (who lately obtained of her majestie his sute for £100 a yeare land in fee farm). His intertainment for that meale was great and exceeding costly. At her first lighting, she had a fine fanne, with a handle garnished with diamonds.' It is also recorded that upon her visit to Hawsted Hall, the seat of Sir Thomas Cullum, she dropped a silver-handled fan into the moat.1 In the year 1600, a commission was issued to the Lord High Treasurer, the Lord Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Treasurer of Her Highness's Chamber, to examine and take a perfect survey of all ' robes, garments, and jewels,' as well within the Court as at the Tower and Whitehall. In this, no less than twenty-seven fans appear. The following are enumerated : — Item, one fanne of white feathers, with a handle of golde, havinge two snakes wyndinge aboute it, garnished with a ball of diamondes in the ende, and a crowne on each side within a paire of winges garnished with diamondes, lackinge 6 diamondes. Item, one fanne of feather of divers colours, the handle of golde, with a bare and a ragged staffe on both sides, and a lookinge glass on thone side. Item, one handle of golde enamelled, set with small rubies and emerodes, lackinge 9 stones, with a shipp under saile on thone side. Item, one handle of christall, garnished with sylver guilte, with a worde within the handle. Item, one handle of elitropia (q), garnished with golde, set with sparks of diamondes, rubies, and sixe small pearls, lackinge one diamonde. 1 Sir John Cullam, Bart., History of Hawsted. IO3 HISTORY OF THE FAN The feather-fan appears in the following portraits of Queen Elizabeth, painted and engraved : — Jesus College : white feather-fan with jewelled handle. The Newcome picture, now in the National Portrait Gallery : part of a feather-fan, the portrait being three-quarter length. Welbeck : a small feather-fan hanging from girdle. The engraving by Johann Rutlinger : a large feather-fan, the handle of elaborate design set with jewels. Also pictures at Cobham ; Woburn Abbey ; Charlecote Park ; Christ Church, Oxford ; Penshurst ; Powerscourt, and other places. The folding-fan was not introduced into this country until the latter part of the queen's reign ; in the following pictures it appears : — Jesus College, half length, 1590. The Ditchley portrait, whole length, 1592 ; fan attached to the girdle and held in right hand. Bodleian Library, portrait attributed to F. Zucharo. To enumerate the different portraits, painted and engraved, in which the feather-fan appears, would be an impossible task ; sufficient has been said to indicate the various forms these articles assumed. Reference may, however, be made to the feather -fan appearing in Renold Elstracke's engraving of Anne of Denmark (queen of James 1) ; this consisting of three large ostrich plumes set in a jewelled handle. To the same engraver's portrait of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James, a similar feather-fan. Also on a monumental brass, illustrated in Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, vol. iii. 291, the wife of John Pen, Esquire, 1641, appears with an ostrich feather-fan hung from her girdle. In a portrait attributed to Sebastian del Piombo at Frankfurt is an extremely ornate feather-fan with a silver handle. We also obtain an excellent idea of the form these feather-fans assumed in Italy in the fifteenth century from the engraved design for a hand-screen 104 THE FLABELLUM & EARLY FEATHER-FAN by Agostino Carracci (illustrated facing p. 204). This consists of an admirably designed cartouche enclosing a subject of a satyr and nymphs bathing ; above is a bust of Diana enclosed in a second cartouche, at the top of which is a head and wings of a Cupid ; the whole is surmounted by a tuft of ostrich feathers. On the same plate are three other medallions, Neptune and Minerva, a head of Mars, and the Graces, these latter either intended as alternative subjects or for introduction at the back of the fan. The engraving is signed 'Agust. Carazza Inv. e fe.' The feather-fan was used by both sexes, as we learn from Bishop Hall, describing a fashionable gallant : ' When a plum'd fan may shade thy chalked face, And lawny strips thy naked bosom grace.' An ostrich-plume folded fan is given in a miniature of Mademoiselle D'Hautefort in the cabinet of M. de la Mdsangere. This consists of ten sticks each with a single feather attached, dyed alternatively yellow and blue. Feather-fans continued in general use until the time of Vandyck and later, and are in evidence in several portraits by this master ; indeed the use of the tuft- and feather-fan has never been completely abandoned, the article having remained in intermittent use even to the present day. None of these ancient feather-fans exist in their complete form, from the perishable nature of the ostrich plume, which, in the lapse of time, crumbles to fragments, and from this circumstance the remark- able feather hand-screen in the possession of Mr. Messel is of the highest interest. A few handles, however, are to be found in the various collections, both public and private. A pretty ivory handle of a sixteenth-century Italian feather-fan is in the Salting collection, at present at South Kensington. This is delicately carved with two half-length female figures issuing from acanthus-leaved ornament, and holding a festoon of drapery, a o 105 HISTORY OF THE FAN mask of Cupid above. Near the handle end are two winged terminal monsters. The head of an ivory-fan handle, also Italian of the same period, is in the South Kensington collection : this has a female terminal (head restored) and two dolphins forming the top, two masks on either side, with other terminals and cornucopia;. GHOST FAN. Malay Archipelago (Ethnological Museum, Berlin.) I 06 .3 E ■a i I ft CHAPTER VI FAN OF FERRARA, OR ' DUCK'S-FOOT' PAINTED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) THE establishment of the Portuguese as a conquering power in the far East dates from the first expedition of Vasco da Gama in 1497. Five years earlier, Christopher Columbus had sailed westward over the Atlantic, bearing a letter from his royal mistress to the great Khan of Tartary, seeking India and far Cathay, and finding instead — America. The three expeditions of Vasco da Gama, during the first twenty years of the sixteenth century, together with the operations of Alfonso d'Albu- querque, resulted in the complete supremacy of Portugal as a trading power with the East. From Japan and the Spice Islands to the Red Sea and the Cape of Good Hope, they were the sole masters and dispensers of the treasures of the East,1 and during the whole of the sixteenth century enjoyed a complete monopoly of the Oriental trade. As early as 1502, the King of Portugal obtained from Pope Alexander vi. a bull constituting him ' Lord of the Navigation, Conquests, and Trade of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India,' but it was not until 1516 that the Portuguese made their appearance in China, where, 'at Ningpo, they succeeded in establishing a colony, carrying on a gainful trade with other parts of China, as well as with Japan.'2 It was thus that the folding-fan found its way first to Portugal through its traders. 1 Dr. Birdwood, Report on Old Records in the India Office, 1898. 2 Sir John Francis Davis, F.R.S., The Chinese. IO7 HISTORY OF THE FAN This introduction of the folding-fan into Europe marks the beginning of a new era of the fan's history, as, although both Chinese and Japanese fans possess qualities which are absolutely individual and unique, yet it must be confessed that the fan, in the hands of European artists, its early Oriental influence notwithstanding, ultimately developed a character and style quite its own, and reflecting the artistic conditions of its epoch and surroundings. There are, however, considerable grounds for supposing that some form of the folding-fan, as we now know it, existed in Europe at a period con- siderably anterior to the Portuguese expedition to the East. Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonnd du Mobilier Fmngais, makes a remarkable statement in connection with some thin metal fragments which were unearthed during some excavation at the Chateau de Pierre. These fragments, says this dis- tinguished author, which are very characteristic of a fan constructed like those of our own times, should be anterior to the siege of 1422, as they were found in the carbonised debris belonging to that epoch. They are composed of an alloyed metal, cuivre et argent. The piece B represents one of the outside flats, and was fixed to a guard of wood or very thin metal, to which was glued the stuff, or vellum ; the piece A one of the branch pieces or brins. M. Viollet-le-Duc infers from the fact of the pieces not being pierced at the handle end, but finished with a cross, that the branches were tied with a silken cord, which would also be attached to the waist belt ; he points out the great antiquity of the flabellum (doubtless meaning the cockade form), and concludes by saying, ' It is difficult to allow that the fan, which is merely a derivation of it (qui n'en est qu'un ddrive*), was not in use until the sixteenth century, as several writers have contended.' M. Viollet-le-Duc's meaning as to the probable construction of this fan is not so clearly stated as might possibly be desired. We take it that these pieces were but the ornaments of a folding-fan formed of ivory, wood, or other material on the modern principle — that the large piece B formed the 1 08 1 PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) shoulder, to be completed by another piece forming the guard proper. How- ever this may be, and whether these pieces really formed part of a folding- fan or not, this author, in the concluding portion of his note, has expressed a truth which it is not possible to gainsay, viz. that the principle of the folding-fan already existed, in I J 1^1 the form of the cockade, and that it is only necessary to divide the cockade in two parts, and to protect the ends with some firm substance, to arrive at the folded fan as we now know it. Indeed this was done — fans were carried towards the close of the sixteenth century which consisted of a segment of a cockade, inserted in a long handle similar to that of the plumed fan, thus uniting the characteristics of both plumed and folded fan. Vecellio, Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo, 1590, figures these small fans, of which two illustrations are given. We are thus presented with a decorative development which is gradual, a b reasonable, and complete, a development quite conceivably independent of any importa- tion from the East, and of itself bridging over the gap that otherwise would have existed between two appar- ently opposing types. Any speculations as to how this fan of M. Viollet-le- SMALL RIGID FANS. (From Vecellio.) Due came to exist would there- fore be idle ; the type was no new one. We have already referred to the pleated fan crest, seen on the heads of horses in Phoenician and Persian monuments.1 A similar fan crest appears on the horse's head in the 1 Fans of the Ancients, p. 27. IO9 HISTORY OF THE FAN Brdtigny seal of Edward in., engraved in consequence of the Treaty of Brdtigny, 1360, by which this monarch renounced the title of King of France. This appeared again in the seal with the altered legend in which he resumed the title — the period of its use, 1372-77. This same seal with fan crest was used successively by Richard 11., Henry iv. (first seal), and Henry vr. (silver seal), the legend only altered. A still more remarkable example is the large displayed fan crest (the earliest authenticated instance of a regular crest),1 in the centre of which is a lion passant, on the top of the flat helmet of Cceur de Lion (second seal, 1197-99), used after his return from captivity, and quite possibly, therefore, borrowed from the East. The fan-plume or panache appears also on the flat-topped helmet of Alexander in., King of Scots (second seal); the horse also bearing the fan-plume. These fan crests are also seen on the seal of Richard Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel ; of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, 1301 ; and of Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of Wales, 1305; and on the effigy of Sir Geoffrey de Luttrel, c. 1340, showing a fan upon which the entire Luttrel arms are depicted. A large fan crest, having little tufts of feathers at each division of the fold, appears on the arms of the family """"'"'' of Schaler, Basle ; another is to be found on the common seal of the City of London (dated 1539), charged with the cross of the city arms. ' In course of time this fan, in the case of London, as in so many instances, has through ignorance been converted or developed into a wing, but the "rays" of the fan in this instance are FEATHER-FA . (Milan.) i . ,, , , , , . . , . preserved in the "rays of the dragons wing (charged with a cross) which the crest is now supposed to be.'2 With respect to the origin of these fan crests, we must go back, 1 A. C. Fox-Davies, Complete Guide to Heraldry. 2 Ibid. IIO OS -J 1 a 5 •3 i ■I* I* PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) says Mr. Fox-Davies, to the bed-rock of the peacock popinjay vanity ingrained in human nature ; the same impulse which nowadays leads to the decoration of the helmets of the Life Guards with horse-hair plumes and regimental badges, the cocked-hats of field-marshals and other officers with wavy plumes. . . . The matter was just a combination of decoration and vanity. Notwithstanding the foregoing instances, it is abundantly clear that the folding-fan, though it may have been in intermittent use during these early periods, obtained no great vogue in Europe until the sixteenth century, when it was in general use in Portugal, Spain, and Italy, and that the prevalence of the fashion was resultant upon the influx of Eastern manufactures. The feather-fan, referred to in the last chapter, although regarded as the sign of nobility, was occasionally carried by the wives of the rich merchants of Venice. A noble Venetian matron carries a tuft fan with a mirror in the centre garnished with pearls ; the plumed fan is seen in the hands of the noble demoiselles of Milan, of married Genoese ladies, of the noble matrons of Siena, the latter of whom, together with the ladies of Venice, Perugia, and other cities, also carried the flag- fan. The smaller fan, with long thin handle, surmounted with five or seven feathers set symmetrically, is carried by the Parmese, Ferrarese, and Florentine ladies, and by the noble matrons of Genoa. The Milanese ladies carried a fan made apparently of feathers, rigid, and bound round in five sections. The married ladies of Naples and Bologna carried rigid screens designed in the form of a cartouche of the strap-work so usual in sixteenth-century Renaissance ornament. The later hand-screens, seen in the engravings of Callot and others, were obviously a development of this form. The above instances are cited from the engraved work of A. de in HISTORY OF THE FAN Bruyn,1 in which also appears a long-handled fan of seven feathers carried by a Turkish lady. In an earlier work by the same engraver, Imperii ac Sacerdotii ornatus, 1579, a bishop holds in his left hand the feather fan, in his right a crozier. In the art library, Victoria and Albert Museum, are several designs for feather-fans and handles, by an unknown artist, but certainly Italian, drawn vigorously with a pen and washed with bistre. In the same col- lection is a design in pencil for the panache of a folding-fan, in the Italian manner, displaying great knowledge of Renaissance design. At the commencement of the seventeenth century, and indeed earlier, small screens were the fashion, painted either with love scenes, inscribed with suitable verses, or views of Italian towns, with a short description, and were sold for a sum equivalent to an English groat. The English traveller, Thomas Coryat, in his Crudities (1608), writes : ' These fans both men and women of the country [Italy] do carry to cool themselves withal in the time of heat, by the often fanning of their faces. Most of them are very elegant and pretty things, for whereas the fan consisteth of a painted piece of paper and a little wooden handle, the paper, which is fastened at the top, is on both sides most curiously adorned with excellent pictures.' These, probably, are the fans referred to above as seen in Vecellio and the work of other engravers. Many were apparently rigid, and probably formed of ivory or similar hard substance ; the size would be about six inches. They were by no means con- fined to Italy, but became the vogue in Spain, France, and other countries. A long fan, carried by a noble Neapolitan lady, is given by Hefner- Altenek, in his work on costume. This is apparently rigid, since no sign of pleating is apparent in the representation, which is, however, small. 1 Omnium pene Europat, Asiae, Aphricae, atque Americae Gentium habitus. Antwerp, 1581. 112 PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) The colour is blue with decorations of gold, the figure taken from a picture in an album in the possession of this author, 1596-1611. Doubtless one of the earliest forms of the folded fan in Italy was the so-called ' duck's foot,' used by the ladies of Ferrara ; the leaf, which opened to a quarter of a circle, was formed of alternate strips of vellum and mica, with delicately painted ornaments. The stick was of ivory and consisted of eight narrow blades. Blondel would seem to infer that this type of fan originated in France, and cites a contemporary portrait of ' un personnage du Bal sous Henri in.' A fan, evidently the ' duck's foot,' with a pattern agreeing with the system of mica or other insertion, appears in an engraved portrait of Louise de Lorraine, queen of Henri in. This form of fan is, however, probably Italian in its origin ; it is figured by Vecellio, in the hands of a lady of Ferrara ; it is also seen in the earlier engraved work of de Bruyn, above referred to. Legendary accounts of the woes of the unfortunate Torquato Tasso, who had dared to 'lift his love' to a princess of the house of Este, have afforded many themes for the imagination of subsequent writers from Byron and Goethe downwards. The story of the fan of Eleonora d'Este, which was of the form above described, surmounted with rubies, is a pretty one, and may be given for what it is worth. On a day when reading to the princess his Gerusalemme, in which the episode of Olindo and Sofronia in the second canto was intended as portraying Tasso's own situation with regard to her, his enraptured listener, won by the charm of the moment, was on the point of yielding, when, by a supreme effort, she recalled herself to her sense of duty, hesi- tated for a moment, grasped her fan, kissed it, flung it at the poet's feet — and fled. This association of vellum and mica appears to have been pretty general for the leaves of the folding-fans upon their first introduction in the middle of the sixteenth century. There were two different systems : p 113 HISTORY OF THE FAN in the one, the decoration consisted of painting on the plain surface of the mica or vellum, or both, as in the fan of Ferrara, or the Actaeon fan, described on page 146; and in the other, the leaf is cut to such a degree of elaboration as almost to rival the finest lace, as in the charming fan in the Mus£e de Cluny, illustrated. The system of mica insertion was developed until fans were made entirely of this material, with painted arabesque decoration similar in character to that of the Actaeon fan at Cluny, illustrated page 146. An extremely interesting example is illustrated from the collection of Mr. L. C. R. Messel. In this, the stick is of plain ivory, perforated on the panaches, the blades numbering thirteen. The leaf is divided into three rows of twenty-five panels each, decorated with a medley of arabesques of children, animals, birds, and flowers, the panels separated by narrow borders in blue and black. Of decoupe' fans, no finer example could be given than that from the Musde de Cluny, the stick of which is composed of ten blades of bone, the two outer ones extending the whole length of the leaf, the rest to a little less than half-way across. The leaf, which occupies exactly three-fourths of the whole length, is of paper cut to an extremely refined geometrical pattern of circles and lozenges, with small, and even minute pieces of mica inserted at intervals, imparting a richness and variety to the fan without destroying its lightness and elegance. This type of fan appears constantly in the portraits, both painted and engraved, of the latter half of the sixteenth century. It reached England, apparently, about 1590, or a little earlier, and is seen in the portraits of Queen Elizabeth painted about this date. This art of elaborate perforation (ddcoupd) is essentially Italian in its origin, and was evidently practised to a considerable extent during the period we have been considering. In the fan which has become associated with Mademoiselle Desroches, the utmost degree of elaboration is attained, 114 f 3 3 ^ •5 PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) and this example may be accepted as a type of a number of fans pro- duced during the seventeenth century and later. It was at a gathering of wits at Poitiers in 1579 that fitienne Pasquier, perceiving a flea on the neck of Mile. Desroches, exclaimed that ' la petite bestiole ' deserved to be immortalised. A collection of poems in Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian, was published in Paris in 1582, under the title of La Puke de Mademoiselle Desroches, the most felicitous of these plaisanteries being, according to La Monnaye, from the pen of the lady herself. The fan leaf, said to commemorate this event, once in the possession of the fair Pompadour, and now in the Jubinal collection at Paris, is of paper, elaborately cut to imitate lace. This leaf — the stick has long since perished — was exhibited at the great exhibition of fans at South Ken- sington in 1870. It bears five finely painted miniatures representing the senses ; in the centre picture (touch) a young man places his finger on the bosom of a sleeping lady, the spot on the neck presumably representing 'la petite bestiole.'1 The charming fan in the possession of Mr. L. C. R. Messel was obtained in Florence. The vellum leaf is finely perforated throughout ; the large centre cartouche and series of small oblong panels are painted with exquisite minuteness and care. The character of the decoration is that of the later years of the seventeenth century, the stick of a subsequent date. The great spirit of the Renaissance had well-nigh exhausted itself by the time the folded fan had become the vogue in Europe. Michael Angelo, the last of the Titans, died in 1564, and had lived long enough to witness the gradual extinction of the school he in great part created. Pierino del Vaga and Sebastian del Piombo had died seventeen years earlier. 1 It is extremely improbable that this fan leaf had ever any connection with the story given above. It probably belongs to the latter years of the seventeenth, or the early years of the eighteenth century US HISTORY OF THE FAN The eclectic principle, developed to its highest attainable point by Raphael, Michael Angelo, Leonardo, was carried on by a crowd of men working on similar lines, but possessing far less knowledge and power, and what was vital truth in the work of the master was reduced to mere affectation in the hands of the follower. During the closing years of the century, Italian art, it is true, received some sort of impetus as a result of the labours of the Carracci, but the revival was short-lived, and it remained to Guido, Guercino, Albani, Maratta, to continue the declension during the seventeenth, to be followed by Tiepolo and Canaletto in the eighteenth centuries. It would serve no good purpose to quarrel with the painted folding- fan on account of its inability to rise to the high ideals of the quattro- and cinque-cento. It belonged to a less spacious age, and if it descended to banality, it was because the times had become banal : it was entirely in tune with its surroundings. It will be convenient, at this juncture, to describe in detail the various elements composing this fan-type which has easily distanced all others in the affections of the fair — a triumph so absolute and complete, that to ninety-nine women out of every hundred the idea of a fan is an instrument which may be folded. The folding-fan, then, is made up of two principal parts — the stick (la monture) B B and the leaf or mount (la feuille) A. The former consists of a number of blades {brins) C C C C, which have varied at different periods, and are folded between two guards {panaches) D. The guard is made up of three dimensions : the handle-end (la We) I, through which passes the pin (rivure) E— this is often jewelled; the 116 A___ ArLEmbarcatum, jtcoL i^orj,. jlLzr- t,iou.t., ItalicLn. or Frcn-t-li: crucL & J / - C'CnA^ Al™HamJ.l£,7i. Smytic. Cupid's I/tYC , CkilcLi Fa-ri.or T^o^LeiiTcL. ITa.LZa.n- , ea-fly Id - Cent-, 72, £ X OS. Th^Do^yi^ft-rjVlaj-cAixrmjj of\Bn-itcl. PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) shoulder {gorge) II, reaching to the lower edge of the mount ; and the guard proper III. The stick of the richer painted fans is composed of either ivory, mother of pearl, tortoise-shell, or bone : often carved with great minute- ness, elaboration, and skill, and further enriched by gilding and inlay, painted miniatures, enamels, and precious stones ; that of the less elaborate fan is of wood of various kinds — ebony, rosewood, bamboo, etc. It is also carved, gilt, inlaid, or lacquered in different ways. The character of Italian sticks is that of simplicity and reticence, even to plainness, this being more in keeping with the generally grave character of the mounts. In a number of instances the brins present a perfectly flat, plain surface of ivory, relieved only by a little carving on the panaches. This is ornamented in various ways, the most characteristic method being that of gold and silver pique. The work is done by means of a drill, the metal pressed into the spaces. One of these Italian fans of the end of the seventeenth century, with plain white stick, is in the Wyatt collection, the skin mount painted with the Storming of Jerusalem, and the miraculous curing of Godfrey de Bouillon's wound, the guards pique" with silver. The beautiful Italian fan, with sea-nymphs upon a sandy shore, once belonging to the unfortunate Marie-Antoinette, and now in the possession of Mr. Burdett-Coutts, is an example of the best quality of pique" work. The stick is of horn of a light transparent golden hue. The panaches bear the crown and fleur-de-lys of France, and appear to be of somewhat later date than the brins and feuille, which may be put about 1760. The fan was acquired in Paris during the troublous times of the Revolution by the father of the late Rev. J. E. Edwards of Trentham, and exhibited by the last named at South Kensington in 1870. Upon the death of Mr. Edwards in 1885 it was purchased by the late Baroness Burdett- Coutts. 117 HISTORY OF THE FAN Another method of ornamentation is that of delicate piercing, the surface of the stick remaining flat and without carving. These pierced ivory sticks are occasionally alternated with those of another material, as light golden tortoise-shell, horn, and, in an instance in the Wyatt col- lection, with a mount of classical landscape and Pompeian ornament, pierced cedar. The Italians, as also the Greeks, discovered early the resources offered to the artist by the material of ivory. Ariosto in his sixth elegy makes a charming reference to it in addressing his mistress : ' As when ivory or marble wrought by the hand of the artist becomes unchangeable, so my heart, more inflexible than these, though it may fear the hand of the assassin, is incapable of receiving the image of any new love to remove thine which is engraven upon it.' The richest sticks are either those in which the piercing is associated with carved panels or cartouches of figures, ornament, etc., with the ribbed backgrounds familiar to us in Chinese workmanship, or those of which the whole surface is treated in the most delicate relief, exhibiting the most consummate skill of handling. This is occasionally further enriched by gilding, silvering, and painting ; in some instances, these several processes are associated, with the addition of mother-of-pearl and tortoise-shell inlay. Mother-of-pearl is treated in precisely the same way as ivory, i.e. flat-pierced ; pierced and carved ; pierced, carved, and engraved ; with, in some instances, the addition of painting, and occasionally tinsel and silvering or gilding. The various kinds of mother-of-pearl used in the manufacture of fans are as follows : — The Burgan or Burgandine pearl obtained from Japan ; the white pearl, 'poulette,' from Madagascar; a black mother-of-pearl from the East. The shells being relatively small, it becomes necessary to piece them together by a system of splicing. This is done so skilfully 118 "Bacchus £ Ariadne. , ^ler Gu^Jc ctS30. ZOxXlti. /^aa.y JVor, tUffi. ThtTriumpk. (f'ScUxJuU . after Arvn-i-i clLc Ca.rrcL*^L. /S?t X I/. Z. ady /VoT-Xh-c-U.//e: PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) that none but a practised eye is able to detect it. For the process of inlay and incrustation, the splendid Eastern pearl called 'gold fish' is used. This, upon its introduction, caused a complete revolution in the ' eventail de luxe ' ; the magnificent rainbow tints of this pearl are said to be further enhanced by a process invented by M. Meyer. Tortoise-shell follows the same principle of decorative development, and when pique" is employed, it is usually gold, as being more in harmony with the colour of the shell. The ' eventail brisd ' dates from the period of the first introduction of the folded fan into Europe. This is so named because it has no mount, but is entirely made up of a number of blades, which may be of any material — ivory, mother-of-pearl, the various woods, etc.," and are painted, carved, or otherwise decorated, fastened at the head by means of a pin or rivet, and further connected with a ribbon running through each blade, at or near the circumference of the fan. The earliest are those which were imported in such large quantities from the East, from the latter part of the sixteenth century onwards. The Western modification of these is seen in that class of fans produced in Italy and elsewhere during the latter part of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, which consisted of a system of flat, pierced scroll-work, of a somewhat severe and reticent character. This was supplemented by panels en cartouche painted and gilt, with por- tions of the ornament enriched with gold and colour; these usually opened out to rather less than a third of a circle. Miss Moss of Fleet possesses an interesting example with a painted ' pastorale ' of three figures in the centre of the fan, together with lesser subjects en cartouche, the floral portion of the scroll ornament being emphasised with colour. In the Wyatt collection is an interesting example of about 1730, in which the ornament forms a large cartouche in the centre, enclosing a subject of two Cupids holding a wreath over a heart with a canopy 119 HISTORY OF THE FAN above. The cartouche is gilt and the figures painted ; the lower portion of the fan is painted and gilt with flowers in the Chinese taste. The guards are carved, painted, and gilt ; the connecting ribbon of green silk ornamented with a pattern in gold. This system was practised later, with the addition of carving in low relief, the ornament having developed a rococo character. Horn is treated in the same process of flat piercing: this was ex- tensively practised during the whole of the eighteenth century, and many 'minuet' fans were made. A beautiful Italian example of these 'minuet' fans is in the Wyatt collection, decorated with silver spangles, with a white silk connecting ribbon. Double or reversible fans open both ways — either from left to right or the reverse. These were in vogue during the latter years of the eighteenth century, and were made of various materials, but usually ivory, with painted ornaments. The most interesting were, however, those of sandalwood, with three printed medallions on either side of the fan, giving twelve subjects. The device, although surprising at first sight, is really simple, and consists of printing each blade with portions of two different subjects in the centre, one set of halves being exposed, the other covered by the blade next following. These fans were common to most of the Western countries of Europe, a large number being made in England with subjects after Angelica Kauffmann and others. The materials employed for the mount are chicken skin (so called, but really kid subjected to a particular treatment), asses' skin, vellum, parchment, silk of various kinds, satin, lace, and paper. The leaf or mount is sometimes single, but more often double. Those of the richer fans are painted either in transparent colour or in gouache (body colour) ; the latter, however, must not be applied too thickly on account of its liability to crack. 1 20 1 ft 4 1 2 8 ii I I" PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) When the leaf is ready for mounting, i.e. after the painting is finished, it is pleated in a mould consisting of two pieces of thick, strong paper or cardboard, specially prepared with a coating of an oily nature ; the leaf being placed between, and the mould closed and pressed. The brins are then introduced between the folds, and fixed by means of glue. This mould was invented about 1760, and the manu- facture of it has remained since that date in the French family of Petit.1 ' This operation of pleating,' says M. Duvelleroy {Rapports du Jury International, Exposition Universelle, 1867, vol. iv.), 'very simple at present, was formerly very complicated ; it was necessary for the eVen- taillistes to exercise the most scrupulous exactitude ; now the mould dispenses with this care.' Nothing that woman uses in the great art of pleasing can, however, be considered simple ; do you doubt this fact ? asks Charles Blanc, speaking of the modern collective mercantile system, rather than that of the artist, who begins his work and carries it to completion with his own hands. ' No less than fifteen or twenty persons are employed in the making of a fan, which passes through three series of operations — 1st, the work of the stick, in which are employed the cutter, the carver, the polisher, the gilder, the inlayer, the riveter, and sometimes the jewel setter, who inserts the precious stones ; 2nd, the leaf, which requires the designer, painter, or printer as the case may be ; 3rd, the work altogether, employing the gluer, and in the case of spangled or embroidered fans, the embroiderer or sempstress, and the folder or pleater.' Finally, as in fitting, the last finishing touches — the tassels, tufts, and marabouts are added by the deft hand of a woman, and to quote again Charles Blanc, ' when this formidable weapon of coquetry is completed, it is enclosed in a case, like a well-tempered blade in its sheath.'2 1 M. Edouard Petit has written an exhaustive monograph on the manufacture of fans, Etudes, souvenirs et considerations sur la fabrication de I'cventail. Versailles, 1859. 2 Art and Ornament in Dress. Q 121 HISTORY OF THE FAN The most distinctive Italian mounts are those in which the whole field is occupied by subjects, usually from classic mythology. These are either direct replicas or rearrangements of the works of the later Italian masters — Giulio Romano, the Carracci, Guido, Guercino, as well as those French artists who either worked in Italy, or whose works found their way to that country, as Poussin, who spent the greater part of his life in Rome, Le Brun, and others. In these the chief interest centres in the mount, which is usually deep, and generally of skin, but occasionally of paper. The painting is in pure water-colour and also in gouache. In many instances these leaves have never been mounted ; in others, the mount has been removed from the stick, and framed as a picture. None can with any measure of certainty be traced to a master-hand, although a fan appeared at the exhibition held in Drapers' Hall (1878), which is declared to be by Pietro da Cortona (Berrettini), 1596-1667, and said to have belonged to the Marquise de Pompadour. One of the earliest of these fan-mounts is in the possession of Mr. J. G. Rosenberg of Karlsruhe ; the subject Orpheus and Iphigenia, the date about 1670. In the Jubinal collection is a Rape of the Sabines, an original design by F. Romanelli, who was employed by Louis xiv. on the frescoes in the Bibliotheque Mazarine. Bacchus and Ariadne was a favourite subject — Guido's well-known composition in the Accademia di Luca, at Rome, being often pressed into the service. The large engraving of Jacobus Freij was issued in 1727, and it is probable that the majority of mounts decorated with this subject were produced after the publication of the engraving. The version illustrated is from the collection of Lady Northcliffe ; a skin mount, with slight differences in the arrangement, was exhibited at South Kensington in 1870 by Captain J. E. Ottley; a third is in the cabinet of an American collector. The famous composition by Annibale Carracci in the Farnese Palace 122 J I tq 5. 4 ft 4 PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) also appears on a number of mounts ; a portion of this picture forms the subject of the centre medallion of Lady Northcliffe's fan (illustrated). The still more popular 'Aurora' of Guido supplied the subject of many mounts, including one in the Schreiber collection, British Museum. Fans painted with Raphael's well-known composition of the ' Marriage of Cupid and Psyche,' in the Villa Farnesina at Rome, appear in many collections, the landscape being added ; the example illustrated is a typical one; the stick, however, is modern. The fan in the Wyatt collection with the subject of Venus and Adonis, by Leonardo Germo of Rome, is interesting from the fact that it is an example of an artist, who, apparently, signed a number of fans, and also from the circumstance that it formerly belonged to Benjamin West. The mount is kid, the stick tortoise-shell, engraved, silvered, and gilt. A fan with the subject of the Triumph of Mordecai, signed ' Germo,' was exhibited at South Kensington in 1870 by M. Chardin of Paris. Another example in the possession of Lady Northcliffe has an alle- gorical subject by Germo, on skin, the stick of ivory finely carved, the guards mother-of-pearl. Somewhat akin to the mounts above described are those elaborate compositions finely drawn in India ink, with pen or brush, on skin mounts, usually vellum. These, from the absence of colour, were used as mourning fans, the sticks invariably of ivory, piqud, or carved ; they are included in most collections that make any pretension to completeness. Lady Bristol possesses one with the subject of Bacchus and Ariadne after Carracci ; but by far the most splendid example of this class of fan appeared in the Walker sale in 1882. This is a crowded composition of the Triumph of Alexander (after Le Brun), in which the conqueror is seated in a chariot drawn by elephants; on the reverse the death of Actaeon. The stick and guards mother-of-pearl, carved with Cupids and ornaments, painted in panels with episodes in the life of Alexander. Finely variegated gilding. 123 HISTORY OF THE FAN These fans are characteristically Italian, certainly Italian in their origin. Their production, however, was by no means confined to Italy. M. Duvelleroy has a Dutch example with ivory stick carved a jour, the mount vellum, the subject on the obverse representing an embarkation with numerous figures, on the reverse a dance of peasants with musicians. (Illustration facing p. 192.) Neapolitan fans divide themselves into two distinct classes or groups — the first having a figure subject en cartouche in the centre, usually taken from classic mythology, the field being occupied by that form of arabesque (grotteschi), so usual in Pompeian wall decoration. This class of mount dates from the re-discovery and unearthing of Pompeii in 1748, and its production was continued until the end of the century and later. Two excellent examples are given from the collection of Mrs. Bruce Johnston, formerly in the possession of Lord Bessborough. The one with the subject of Bacchus and Ariadne, from a fresco at Pompeii, bought in Naples by Lady Duncannon ; the other of a sacrificial subject, also from a Pompeian fresco, obtained in the same city (in the eighteenth century) by Lady Ponsonby. Many of these mounts have, in lieu of a single central subject, several miniatures en cartouche, associated with arabesques similar in character to those above referred to. A good example appears in the Wyatt collection at South Kensington. In the second type of Neapolitan mounts, the field is similarly divided into panels, usually one superior and two inferior, representing views, generally the bay of Naples with Vesuvius in the distance, forming the centre panel, and Vesuvius in eruption, and a classic ruin on either side. These, with other Italian views, as the Colosseum in Rome, form a very large class ; the panels being associated with arabesque or other ornaments. Another important class of Italian mounts gives a view of some famous 124 3 i $ 1 1 e «* 6 t PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) building or place, occupying the whole field of the fan. Of this, no finer example could be given than the magnificent fan in the possession of Mr. W. Burdett-Coutts, M.P., of the Piazza of St. Mark's, Venice, after Canaletto (Antonio Canal, b. 1687, d. 1768). The mount is skin; on the right is a group of performing acrobats surrounded by spectators ; on the left some strolling players, with peregrinic theatre; on the reverse a view of Venice from the sea. The stick ivory, carved a jour, with characters of the pantomime, some being gilt and painted in ' vernis Martin,' others in the pure ivory ; the guards carved with marks and musical trophies. These acrobats, one of the popular Venetian amusements of the period, appear in ' A Fete on the Piazzetta,' school of Canaletto, in the Wallace collection. This fan, together with one of a similar class, with a view of St. Peter's at Rome, was acquired by the late Baroness at the Walker sale in 1882. Fans were made for children in Italy and most other countries during the eighteenth century. These were both painted and printed, the latter variety often having the numerals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, o, on the leaf, doubtless as serving an educational purpose. A collection of these children's fans was exhibited by Miss Marie Josephs at Drapers' Hall in 1890. The beautiful Italian fan, ' Cupid's Hive,' contributed by Lady Bristol, is so charming in the skill of its painted leaf, and the delicate carving of its ivory-jewelled stick, that it is difficult to conceive of its having been placed in the hands of a child. These fans occasionally appear in painted portraits, the Infanta Margaretha-Theresia, by Velasquez, in the Vienna Gallery, being an instance. The foregoing includes all the principal types of fans produced in Italy during the period we have under consideration ; they each present well-marked characteristics, and are therefore not difficult of identification. 125 HISTORY OF THE FAN We have abundant written testimony to the superiority of the Italian workmen during the seventeenth century, and to the extent of the Italian export trade in fans during this period and even later. We have also the evidence of the fans themselves ; we shall see, too, how the Paris eventaillistes first learned their craft from the Italian workmen who migrated northward. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, a complete change had taken place in the conditions of fan production, this period witnessing the rise of the French export trade, and the middle of the century its highest development, at which latter period Paris supplied not only Italy but Spain, and to some extent England also. Of this we have more than a hint from the pen of one of the most distinguished Italians of the latter half of the century. The fan of Goldoni's comedy was one of the ordinary sort, ' not worth perhaps five paoli.' The concluding lines of the play make it clear that a considerable trade in the cheaper French fans was done in Italy at this period (1763), and, by inference, that Paris fans had the best reputation, unless indeed we are to suppose that this was a compliment paid by Goldoni to the country of his adoption, from which, too, he enjoyed a pension : Candida (to Susanna). It is from Paris, this fan? Susanna. Yes, from Paris ; I guarantee it. Geltrude. Come, I invite you all to supper, and we will drink to this fan which did all the harm and brought all the good. 126 In s 1 N ■a «s 4« R h PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) PAINTED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES— Continued RIGID SCREEN (Carried by the married ladies of Bologna.) SPANISH THE Spaniards, says Henri Estienne, carried towards 1440 large round screens garnished with plumes, and in the sixteenth century folded fans, 4ventails plissds, enriched with gold and attached to the waist by a gold cord. Of these latter, many, doubtless, were im- ported from Italy ; few, probably, were of native work- manship. A very small pleated fan appears in the hand of a Spanish lady, illustrated in Vecellio, 1590. The rigid flag-fan employed in Italy at this period was also used in Spain, together with the various plumed fans, some in the shape of a peacock's tail ; others formed of the feathers of the ostrich, pheasant, parrot, and Indian raven. During the seventeenth century and later, a large export trade in unpainted pleated fans was done in Paris to Madrid and other Spanish cities, where they were decorated by native artists; many were exported com- plete, the authenticity of many so-called Spanish fans must always there- fore remain a more or less doubtful question. The well-known story of Cano de Arevalo, given in Quilliet's Dictionnaire des peintres espagnols, sufficiently testifies to the extent of the Paris export trade and the popularity of French fans during this period. This painter, who was a capable miniaturist, finding himself impoverished after a period of extravagance and dissipation, secluded himself for a whole winter, produced a number of fans, and passed them off as newly- imported French ones. The trick proved completely successful, for upon 127 HISTORY OF THE FAN its discovery, he was not only hailed as a master, but was subsequently appointed abaniquero (fan-maker) to the queen. Cano was born at Valdemoro in 1656, and was assassinated in a bull-fight at Madrid in 1696. From the same source (Quilliet) we learn that Cano also 'essayed water-colour painting on a larger scale, but only succeeded with fans,' which are still esteemed, the few that are preserved. This success of Cano must necessarily have given a considerable impetus to the native production of fans, largely used from the fifteenth century onwards by men as well as women. In brief, the story of Spanish painting during the whole of the sixteenth century is that of a general migration of Spanish artists to Italy for purposes of study, with a consequent strong Italian influence ; and an immigration of Italian artists to Spain, chiefly at the invitation of Charles v. The seventeenth century witnessed the rise and full develop- ment of a purely native school of painting, headed by Velasquez and Murillo, who, however, can scarcely be said to have exercised any influence upon the fan, since they were painters pure and simple, i.e. their works were distinguished by the qualities of the painter rather than those of the designer ; and, especially in the case of Velasquez, their subjects were unsuitable to the fan. We do not usually look to the last-named painter for elaboration of detail. The folding-fan in the hands of the Spanish lady by Velasquez, 'La Femme a l'Fiventail,' at Hertford House, would appear to be of leather, judging from the colour and texture, with applied ornaments at regular intervals. This is probably of the scented variety, peau de senteur, made both in Italy and Spain at this period.1 We have already referred to the portrait of the little Infanta Margaretha-Theresia by Velasquez in the Vienna Gallery, in which a closed folding-fan is represented. 1 Fans of scented wood had, earlier, been introduced into the French Court by Anne of Austria. 128 jMias Adoss. Capturf ^(At,lSal^ari£ 7sla^i^~s, /?59, *5joa*iZj^ Atrl- CJZM^^L. PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) In the Prado at Madrid appear the following portraits : — Mengs. Maria Giuseppa, Archduchess of Austria, a closed folding-fan, jewelled. ,, Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples, a folding-fan. Lopez. Queen Maria Cristina di Borbone, a closed folding-fan. Goya. Queen Maria Luisa, a closed folding-fan. The interesting fan representing the capture of the Balearic Islands by the Spaniards in 1759 may be taken as of Spanish workmanship. The subject is taken from a painting in the Escurial. The stick is ivory, carved h jour with three cartouches, painted and gilt ; in the centre appear figures of commanders on horseback, a march of troops on the one side and warships on the other ; the background ' gold-fish ' inlay. The paper mount is painted in gouache; and on the reverse is a view of a fort. The style of the painting presents similar characteristics to a fan mount in the Schreiber collection, British Museum, in which we are introduced to a ' Carrousel at Madrid,' with a large square filled with spectators appearing at the windows of the houses ; in the centre of the background is a pavilion with the king and suite, inscribed Carlos m., and a performance of a number of horsemen led by the ' Duque de Mddinacdli,' the ' Marques de Tabara,' and the ' Marques de Aztorga.' The leaf, which has been removed from the stick, is of paper, painted in gouache. A fan of this subject appeared in the exhibition of fans at South Kensington in 1870, in the possession of Madame Charles Heine of Paris ; the stick of tortoise-shell, carved and gilt. This same king, who succeeded to the Spanish throne in 1759, figures as the subject of two fan designs in the Schreiber collection, the one representing his triumphal entry into Naples in 1734 on his election to the crown of the Two Sicilies, with the subject inscribed in Spanish ; the leaf signed ' F° La Vega Hisp. Let. D.' ; below the picture, ' Minado por Cayetano Pichini Romano.' The other, a companion r 129 HISTORY OF THE FAN fan design, represents the sham-fight and siege of Gaeta in 1734 on the occasion referred to above ; a canopy bears the arms of Spain, and on either side a trophy with the arms of Medicis and Farnese ; the subject inscribed in Spanish : ' Fm La Vega Hispa6 Bilbilitanus InT e Delineavit Roma,' and ' Minado Por Leonardo Egiarmon Flamenco.' Both these fan designs are vigorously drawn with pen in bistre and worked with India ink, the style betraying a strong late Italian influence. One of the first acts of Charles, upon his accession to the throne, was to enter into a treaty with Louis xv. known as the ' Pacte de famille,' by which these two kings of the house of Bourbon united themselves into an offensive and defensive alliance. By the terms of this treaty, signed 15th August 1761, Spain was obliged to take part in the war in which France and England were then engaged, France hoping to avail herself of the mari- time power of Spain, and to prevent Portugal from declaring common cause with England. Its only effect, however, was to inflict upon her ally a series of disasters similar to her own, Spain losing Cuba, Manilla, and the Philippine Islands, and France Martinique, besides being finally expelled from Canada, thus completing the work begun by Wolfe at Quebec some two years previously. The sequel to these events was the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the prelimin- aries of peace being signed at Fontainebleau on the 3rd November of the previous year. By the terms of this instrument, Canada, the islands of Minorca, Grenada and the Grenadines, St. Vincent, Dominica and Tobago were ceded to Britain, while to France were restored Belleisle on the French coast, the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon near Newfoundland, Martinique, Guada- loupe, Marigalante, Desirade, and St. Lucia in the West Indies. Havannah was restored to Spain, the Spaniards in return ceding Florida to the English, and agreeing also to make peace with Portugal. In La Revue Hispaniqzie, tome viii., appeared an article by M. Gabriel 130 1 <S ^ * a! 8-i 25 PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) Marcel, reprinted in pamphlet form under the title of ' Un Iiventail Historique du dix-huitieme siecle, Paris, 1901,' describing and illustrating a remarkable fan in the cabinet of a Parisian amateur whose name is not given, commemorating the event above referred to. The stick is ivory, carved with an agreeable pell-mell of cartouches, gilt ; the centre being occupied by a conversation galante of four figures in the costume of the Watteau period. In the centre of the skin leaf, finely painted in gouache, is a stone table carved in high relief with figures of Cupids, near which are the Kings of France and Spain, each accompanied by a female figure representing the respective countries, and bearing a shield of arms ; above, a figure of Peace crowned with olive leaves appears from the clouds and directs the ceremony. In the middle distance is a tribune on which are seated three female figures, with a cornucopia of abundance, and the arms of France and Spain ; above is a figure of Fame with a trumpet. In the more immediate foreground are the Kings of England and Portugal, their identity being determined by the blazoning of the shields which accompany them. Court officials, together with their ladies, complete the composition. The reverse, which is less interesting, and probably by another hand, represents an architectural structure with, again, the arms of France, and above, those of France and Spain entwined. Although it is possible that the fan may be of Spanish manufacture, it is more probably French, since it bears all the characteristics of French work of the period of Louis Quinze. It was probably made either for a royal princess, or for the wife of some prominent official who took part in the negotiations of the treaty. The classical revival of the middle of the eighteenth century was not without its effect on Spain ; fans being painted in this country also with subjects from the Greek mythology. At the exhibition at South Kensington 131 HISTORY OF THE FAN in 1870, the Dowager-Countess of Craven exhibited a large Spanish dress fan, the mount richly painted on vellum, with a centre subject of Aurora and Zephyr, the floral ornaments embossed in gold and spangled ; the stick carved ivory and mother-of-pearl, with figures in gold relief variegated and spangled, jewelled stud.1 Towards the middle of the eighteenth century onwards, a class of fan was made in which the stick, usually of tortoise-shell, but also of ivory and other material, was elaborately pierced and carved, occasionally in the most ornate fashion, the brins numbering from eight to ten, the guards wide, both being heavily incrusted with gold and silver. The mounts of these fans were always narrow, measuring about three-sevenths of the length of the stick. This class of fan, examples of which appear in most collections, by general consent has . been associated with Spain, although, doubtless, it was produced in other countries also. One of the earliest of these fans, as well as one of the finest, is that in the possession of Lady Bristol, described and illustrated in the succeeding chapter, page 163. This, from the skill displayed in its finely designed stick, and the style of its delicately painted leaf, is more probably French than Spanish. Interesting examples of this class of fan are given from the collections of H.R.H. the Princess Victor of Hohenlohe-Brandenburg and Mrs. Frank W. Gibson. In the first-named instance the stick is tortoise- shell, with gold incrustations of figures of Roman warriors, musicians in the costume of the period of the fan (c. 1780), Cupids, and other orna- ments : the leaf a pretty pastoral ; the work, although probably Spanish, showing a strong French influence. Mrs. Gibson's fan belonged to her grandmother, who was a Spaniard ; the leaf, probably, represents the betrothal of Louis xvi. and Marie Antoinette, Louis being but sixteen at the time of his marriage in 1770. The Austrian Court was closely allied to that of Spain ; and this subject, therefore, 1 S. Redgrave, South Kensington Catalogue of Fan Exhibition, 1870. 132 CORRIGENDUM Page 132, line 12 from bottom, for H.R.H. the Princess Victor of Hohenlohe-Brandenburg, read H.S.H. the Princess Victor of Hohenlohe Langenburg. HISTORY OF THE FAN in 1870, the Dowager-Countess of Craven exhibited a large Spanish dress fan, the mount richly painted on vellum, with a centre subject of Aurora and Zephyr, the floral ornaments embossed in gold and spangled ; the stick carved ivory and mother-of-pearl, with figures in gold relief variegated and spangled, jewelled stud.1 Towards the middle of the eighteenth century onwards, a class of fan was made in which the stick, usually of tortoise-shell, but also of ivory and other material, was elaborately pierced and carved, occasionally in the most ornate fashion, the brins numbering from eight to ten, the guards wide, both being heavily incrusted with gold and silver. The mounts of these fans were always narrow, measuring about three-sevenths of the length of the stick. This class of fan, examples of which appear in most collections, by general consent has. been associated with Spain, although, doubtless, it was produced in other countries also. One of the earliest of these fans, as well as one of the finest, is that in the possession of Lady Bristol, described and illustrated in the succeeding chapter, page 163. This, from the skill displayed in its finely designed V I a! * *s d I *n PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) would naturally appeal to the Spaniards. A wedding fan occurs in the collection of Lady Lindsay, having for its centre medallion a lady's dressing-room, with Cupid holding a mirror ; on the sides are a Cupid lighting his torch from an altar, and a Cupid with bow and arrows. The stick of tortoise-shell, finely silvered and gilt. A remarkable fan in this same collection was brought from Madrid by Lady Canning, who accompanied Sir Stratford Canning to Spain on a special mission from Queen Victoria, and was given to Lady Lindsay in 1878. The stick is of ivory, finely and elaborately carved ; the mount, skin, painted in the Chinese taste; illustrated facing p. 127. The character of Spanish work of the stick, which, with a few isolated exceptions, never reached a high level of attainment, materially deteriorated towards the close of the century. A fan appears in the Schreiber collection, with ivory stick, indifferently carved and gilt, the silk leaf having for its subject a large medallion of the surrender of Minorca in 1782, with the English army evacuating the island, and the Spanish flag waving over the fort of S. Phelippe ; the sides decorated with vases of flowers embroidered, painted, and spangled ; the subject inscribed in Spanish along the top border of the fan. Of the treatment of the stick, two interesting examples in the Wyatt collection may be referred to — the one, belonging to the early part of the century, in which painted trellis-work in blue and brown is introduced as a background to finely pierced and carved cartouches of figures and other subjects, the ornament being enriched with gold ; the other with a paper mount representing the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon (probably a church-fan), the mother-of-pearl sticks engraved with three figure sub- jects en cartouche, with elaborate scroll-work ; the leading features of the ornament, together with portions of the figures, being emphasised with thin lines of gold, having an extremely pleasant effect; c. 1750. Spanish painting in the latter half of the eighteenth century experienced 133 HISTORY OF THE FAN some revival in the person of Francisco Goya, one of the most extraordinary personalities who ever wielded a brush, and whose greatness is only just beginning to be adequately recognised, chiefly, however, on account of his etchings, of which he produced a number.1 If we may conceive Goya as ever touching the fan, the example il- lustrated, from the collection of Lady Northcliffe, is just such a one as he might have painted. At any rate this may be considered as a typical Spanish fan. The silk leaf has in the centre a mounted picador, with six medallions of bull-fights ; above the picador are two Cupids holding a shield of arms, with thirteen other shields along the upper border, bearing the arms of Biscaria, Cordova, Majorca, Valencia, Arragonia, Leon, Castillia, Navarra, Toledo, Gallicia, Andalusia, Murcia, and Catalonia. The shields, together with the medallions, are bordered with embroidered spangles ; the ivory stick and guards finely pierced and inlaid with gold and silver. The charming spangled fan in the possession of Mr. Talbot Hughes may also be accepted as of undoubted Spanish workmanship. In this, the leaf is of white silk, painted with a female figure in a garden, arranging flowers from a basket. The head is an applied miniature on ivory, a device much affected by the Chinese ; the necklace, seed pearls applique' ; the dress completely of spangles. The leaf is enriched with a border of gold and silver sequins of various forms, some being set with crystals. The stick ivory, coloured, gilt, and decorated a la paillette. The date about 1800. It has been shown, beyond any possibility of doubt, that during the seventeenth century French exportation of this dainty article to Spain was considerable, French fans enjoying the best reputation in that country, as well as in Italy, and that this pre-eminence was maintained during the succeeding century, the period of the highest development of the fan 1 One of the most potent earlier influences on Spanish painting was that of Titian, who, although probably never in Spain, painted a number of pictures for the Escurial. 134 ^> 3 1 « a Is* 11 it PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) industry in France ; but while it is difficult to associate the native Spanish workmanship with fans of the highest calibre, a preference for the richer French fans having always prevailed, it is certain that the production of the cheaper fans was, and is, considerable, Valencia being the chief centre of the industry. It is equally certain that in no country in Europe is the employment of the fan so general, or the toy so gracefully wielded, as in this land of light, colour, and romance. Thdophile Gautier {Tra los monies) thus refers to the importance of the fan in Spain : ' The Fan corrects in some measure the pretension of the Spaniards to Parisianism. A woman without a fan is a thing I have never yet seen in that favoured land ; I have seen women wearing satin shoes without any stockings, but they had, nevertheless, their fans, which follow them everywhere, even to church, where you meet groups of all ages, kneeling or sitting, praying and fanning themselves with equal fervour.' 1 We should remember,' says Disraeli {Contarini Fleming), ' that here [Cadiz], as in the north, the fan is not confined to the delightful sex. The cavalier also has his fan ; and, that the habit may not be considered an indication of effeminacy, learn that in this scorching clime the soldier will not mount guard without this solace.' In Spain, as in China and Japan, there is a fan for every occasion — for the street, where paper ones are used, these affording more breeze on a sultry day than do lace or silk ; for feast days, bull-fights,1 and the theatre, silk or lace fans, mounted on sandalwood, bone, ivory, or mother-of-pearl. A favourite material is silk, mounted on a carved wooden frame which opens and shuts easily, a most essential thing in a Spanish fan, which is perpetually in motion, portraying the feelings and thoughts that are passing through the mind of its owner. 1 'They all love the feasts of bulls, and strive to appear gloriously fine when they see them.' — Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe. 135 HISTORY OF THE FAN The fan is in the hands of every one, from the merest baby to the big toreador, who employs it as a means of exciting the ire of his bovine adversary. It serves as convenient screen for the dark-eyed beauty, who, seated in the balcony in the still evening, listens eagerly to the impassioned serenade beneath. At the theatre, says Blondel, nothing is more curious than the mani- pulation of these instruments, playing with the expressive grace which is a silent flirtation. Before the play begins, or during the intervals, every one talks in the midst of a confused noise resembling the buzzing of an immense swarm of flies. The curtain rises — all resume their places ; the conversation ceases ; the fans, everywhere waving in varied movement, gradually, one by one, tone down into regularity of time ; they flutter in captivating cadence, suggesting in appearance a crowd of variegated butterflies, and charming the ear with their delightful ' frou-frou.' It is this play of the fan (manejo del abanicd) in which fair dames and demoiselles have become such adepts, that it has been necessary to coin a word to express this charming art. Thus, ' abanicar ' means the play of the fan, while ' ojear ' signifies the language of the eyes. These two manoeuvres, remarks M. Louis Iinault shrewdly, are closely allied, and one alone suffices for a man's destruction. The fan, indeed, has its own particular language, more eloquent than that of flowers — the Spanish novia (lady-love) communicates her thoughts by code to her novio (sweetheart), as — engaged couples in Spain being never allowed alone — woman's ready wit has devised this means of pri- vate conversation. The instructions are set forth in fifty different directions in a little booklet published in German by Frau Bartholomaus, from the original Spanish of Fenella. A few examples will probably suffice as an indica- cation of the method : — 136 Mr77z.Uct ffujku Fete cb lAoriailtiLrC. f7P£. sltL rrv-ou.rit, sba.iaU.1 AirLCR.Alt*stL PAINTED FANS (ITALIAN AND SPANISH) i. You have won my love. Place the shut fan near the heart. 2. When may I be allowed to see you ? The shut fan resting upon the right eye. 3. At what hour? 4. I long always to be near thee. 5. Do not be so imprudent. 6. Why do you misunderstand me? 7. You may kiss me. 8. Forgive me, I pray you. 9. Do not betray our secret. 10. I promise to marry you. The number of the sticks of the fan in- dicate the hour. Touch the unfolded fan in the act of waving. Threaten with the shut fan. Gaze pensively at the unfolded fan. Press the half-opened fan to the lips. Clasp the hands under the open fan. Cover the left ear with the open fan. Shut the full-opened fan very slowly. And so on, through the whole gamut of the language of love. A shorter code has been published in English (duly copyrighted) by M. J. Duvelleroy. This, although the principle is the same, differs materially in the details ; thus, ' I love you ' in Spanish is to hide the eyes behind the opened fan ; in English, to draw the fan across the cheek. ' I hate you,' in the former instance, is to raise the shut fan to the shoulder in the right hand ; in the latter, to draw the fan through the hand : either code being sufficiently expressive and acquired with tolerable ease. 137 CHAPTER VII PAINTED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES (FRENCH) THE so-called Renaissance of the arts of France in the sixteenth century was the outcome of an increased knowledge of, and familiarity with, Italian ideals of life, and the splendours of a more refined civilisation ; it represented the assimilation of the national spirit, the union of French ' nettete" d'exdcution ' with the more sober learning of Italian tradition. The beginnings of this Italian influence are to be discovered earlier, in the visit of Jean Foucquet to Italy in 1440-1445; this event being the signal for a general migration of Italian artists northward. For the purposes of the fan, however, we are con- cerned only with the history of French art from the period when, in 1530, at the invitation of Francois 1., Le Rosso and Primaticcio repaired to Paris for the purpose of decorating the palace at Fontainebleau. At this period architecture was creating Chenonceau and Chambord. Sculpture, in the hands of Cellini and Jean Goujon, was providing the decorative details for the chateau then being built by Philibert de l'Orme for Diana de Poitiers. In the sister art of Painting, Jean Cousin and Francois Clouet, to- gether with Primaticcio, who continued working until 1570, were the dominant influences. 138 FAN OF RICE STRAW (From a Fifteenth- Century MS. in the National Library, Paris.) g S Si I 1 ft i * PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) Simon Vouet, recalled to Paris after a lengthy sojourn in Rome, was painting the nobles of the French court, and decorating for Richelieu the Palais Royal and the Chateau de Rueil. Poussin, French by birth, Italian and classic in sympathy, found the artistic atmosphere of Rome more congenial to him. In 1640, upon a pressing invitation from Louis xiii., he migrated to Paris, but, on account of court intrigues, the jealousies of his brother artists, and the malignity of Vouet, under pre- tence of bringing his wife from Rome, he left Paris in 1642, never to return. The pupils of Vouet were Le Sueur and Charles le Brun. With this latter artist French painting enters upon a new phase, and it is impossible to overestimate the influence for good or for evil exercised by him during the latter half of the seventeenth century ; nay, it extended practically over the whole of the century, since he began painting almost from his infancy. The work of Le Brun, in spite of its many affectations, possesses many admirable qualities : such a composition, for example, as ' The Entry of Alexander into Babylon,' now in the Louvre, which, by the way, appears on an Italian fan in the Wyatt collection, at once stamps him as a master of decorative arrangement, and is typical both of his qualities and his limitations. One of the most significant events in the history of French art was the founding of the Academy in 1648: in this Le Brun naturally took a leading part, as also in the foundation of the French School in Rome, of which he was the first director. The establishment of the Academy had a direct as well as an indirect bearing upon the fan, since on more than one occasion it ' used the power of its prestige in defence of the just liberties of the eventaillistes.' 2 1 Proces Verbaux, April 26, 1762, Jan. 1765. Lady Dilke, French Painters of the Eighteenth Century, p. 12. 139 HISTORY OF THE FAN Pierre Mignard (Le Romain), the lifelong rival of Le Brun, pos- sessed something of the grand manner, derived from his study of the Carracci and Domenichino. In 1664 he was the head of the Academy of St. Luke, and in 1690, upon the death of Le Brun, he was appointed Director of the Academy of Painting, a post which he filled until his death in 1695. We have said that during the sixteenth century, Italian influences on French art were paramount — these influences being entirely healthy and regenerative. Throughout the succeeding century the dominant influence was still Italian, but its effect was as deleterious as it had been formerly beneficent. By 1700 the decorative arts were well on the downward path. Bernini had been dead twenty years, but his influence, together with that of Borromini, was still a living thing, and was still working irre- parable mischief. Sir M. Digby Wyatt, in a powerful article written for Owen Jones's Grammar of Ornament, referring to Borromini, says : ' From his fervid imagination and rare facility as a draughtsman and designer, he soon obtained ample employment ; and in his capricious vagaries, every tendency to extravagance that Bernini's style possessed Borromini contrived to caricature. Until his death, in 1667, he continued sedulously occupied in subverting all known principles of order and symmetry, not only to his own enrichment, but to the admiration of the leaders of the fashion of the day. The anomalies he introduced into design, the disproportionate mouldings, broken, contrasted, and re-entering curves, . . . became the mode of the day, and all Europe was speedily busy in devising similar enormities. In France the fever raged speedily, and the popular style, in place of the quaint but picturesque forms to be seen in the engravings of Du Cerceau, 1576, substituted the more elaborate but less agreeable ones to be found in Marot, 1727, and Mariette, 1726-7. . . . Despite this debasing influence,' continues our 140 Z,CL£>Ctflse , L OUIS'XV. skirv Uof, met fur of pearl stiel carve J, r>a.inT^cl,<£L yilt. 22X7/$. ' T ~r TA^T>u^lyi cfVortLnd. J>ajrterrelLe-, ZjytUfXV, sizn. lea/, toTrtouseskell stick., hvith- ootcL tTucy-usta-ti^ru /&+X70. Thc-'Iyu^A.aJs tfJiortLajl^jL. PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) author, ' many of the French artists of the time, both of Louis xiv. and xv., in the midst of their extravagances, made many beautiful ornamental designs, showing in them a sense of capricious beauty of line rarely surpassed.' This, although written at the period of perhaps the very lowest ebb of the decorative arts, the mid-Victorian era, pretty well sums up the matter, and is a fair estimate of the decorative tendencies that obtained at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The general character of the fan, therefore, necessarily partook of this debasing influence, and reflected the ornamental vulgarities and fashionable inanities of the time. Thus we have, in moulded ornament, a profusion of those extravagant shell- like cartouches which have become identified with the periods of Louis xv. and xvi. ; curly structures elaborately perforated, beginning and ending at will, observing no reasonable or well-defined law, but expressing only the caprice of the artist. These either formed the starting-point for the lighter ornaments, or were associated with naturalistic swags and festoons of fruit and flowers, masks, ribbons, etc. With the dawn of the eighteenth century, French pictorial art enters upon that era of fites galantes, conversations galantes, and amusements champetres, which, whatever its shortcomings, was purely French and native to the soil. The pernicious influence of the Italian decadence is about to be shaken off. Watteau was sixteen years old, and just commencing those labours which resulted in the practical regeneration of French painting. He may be said to dominate the art of the eighteenth century as completely as Le Brun had overshadowed the century which preceded. He sums up in himself that spirit of the joyousness of life, that careless, impulsive frivolity which is the note of the age. His immediate followers, Lancret, Pater, and in some sense De Troy, carried on the tradition, but with a more pronounced convention : the shimmer and sheen of silk and satin draperies are painted according to 141 HISTORY OF THE FAN a recipe, the general treatment of the subjects reveals a less delicate fancy, and a less tender sympathy. Boucher, friend and servant of La Pompadour, 'with her fan that breaks through halberds,' J has been styled, with more or less semblance to truth, the Anacreon of painters. His convention is of an entirely different order to that of Watteau and his school ; but if his method and style is more artificial, it is because life and manners have become less sincere, and because he is true to his belief that ' Nature wanted harmony and seduction ' ; he yields nothing to his predecessors in artistic power, he is completely master of his technique, and understands exactly the measure of his gifts. In his pupil Fragonard, we have in reality the true heir and successor of Watteau — the same supple touch, the same alluring grace, the same captivating invention and suggestiveness which always summons us to an enchanted land of love, and music, and dalliance. It was an exceedingly gay, light-hearted, and pleasant time — in painting at any rate. Strephon sat at the feet of Phyllis, warbling soft nothings to the accompaniment of the lute. Dan Cupid, who was everywhere in evidence, took it for granted that his presence was always a propos, and never troubled his curly head as to whether his decorative surroundings were in the nicest possible taste. The fan necessarily reflected this eccen- tricity and extravagance — indeed it took its natural place in the general decorative scheme ; the ' dainty rogues ' of the sideboard and mantel-shelf were in complete harmony with the still more dainty rogues of the fan ; the shepherdess in her flowered skirt rubbed shoulders, or attempted to do so, with the fine lady in crinoline. The fun waxed faster and more furious ; the times grew madder and still more mad ; the exuberance of the rococo became more and more pronounced, until no inanity remained untried, no extravagant banality overlooked. Then came the inevitable reaction. The latter half of the 1 Walter Thornbury, Legendary Ballads and Songs. 142 5 4 1 i ■a I PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) century witnessed the sowing of the seed, and, indeed, the full fruition, of that neo-classicism, which, although a relief from the barocco of the pre- ceding period, was the outcome of no settled conviction except the desirability of entering any port in a storm ; it had its origin in the interest which was then being taken in archaeology and classical research. With the Revolution came artistic chaos, and — the nineteenth century. The cold, correct classicalities of the ' style de l'Empire ' were due, in great part, to the influence of the painter David, although the inauguration of this new epoch was claimed by Vien. The work of David and that of his immediate followers, Girodet, Gros, Gerard, and Ingres, represented perhaps the natural antidote to the decorative debauch which is here passed rapidly in review ; its final overthrow was brought about by that riot of academic tradition in which it subsequently indulged, rather than by the labours of Delacroix and the school of Romanticists which followed. This, in the briefest possible terms, is an account of the general and more obvious tendencies of French art during the two centuries we have under consideration. How far, then, and to what extent may we trace the direct handiwork of these artists upon the fan ? What of the authors of these dainty creations, that fluttered and shimmered like so many butterflies through the summer sunshine — what do we know of their personality? Several references are made in this work to the similarity which exists between the eVentaillistes and the ceramists. The conditions of production were precisely the same, the workers in the two arts were, broadly speaking, of the same artistic calibre ; indeed, it is on record that, upon a shortage of painters at the royal factory of Sevres, the eVentaillistes were called in to fill the breach. At the close of the reign of Louis xv., says Paul Mantz, the most prominent eVentaillistes were Chevalier, Josse, Boguet, Hubert, Race, and Mme. V£rite\ Amongst the 143 HISTORY OF THE FAN painters, almost in every instance obscure, were doubtless some young artists who had still their position to make, and the signature of Cahaigue is recorded with the date 1766. In the Louvre are two fan leaves signed by Raymond La Farge, c. 1680. An ivory brise" fan, with the subject of Blindman's Buff, signed 'Tiquet Fecit, 1720/ appeared in the Walker sale in 1882. Le Sieur Pichard, also, is mentioned in an almanac of 1773, as being very well known as a fan painter ; Mme. Dore\ at the same date, painted on silk and gauze: both the last-named worked for the eventaillistes. — But the greater names, which have become illustrious in the annals of French art, Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard ; is it possible to claim these also for the fan? — A fan bearing the ineffably gracious touch of a Fragonard, what a possession 1 Lancret painted a picture in the form of a fan, representing two figures in a wooded landscape. M. Paul Mantz, referring to the fan in the collection of Dr. Poigey of Paris, decorated with light simple ornament and medallion heads of a youth and two young girls, says : ' The delicacy of refined rose tint, the sureness of touch, the free manipulation of the gouache, show a master-hand ; of a certainty, if Boucher ever painted a fan, it is this one.' Balzac (Cousin Pons) refers to a 'gem of a fan' found at a second- hand dealer's, enclosed in a little box of West India wood, signed by Watteau^), and formerly the property of La Pompadour. The old musician turns towards his cousin with a courtly bow, offers her the fan of the favourite, saying : ' It is time for that which has served Vice to be in the hands of Virtue; a hundred years will be required to work such a miracle. Be sure that no princess can have anything comparable with this chef dceuvre, for it is unhappily in human nature to do more for a Pompadour than for a virtuous Queen.' We learn from BrantAme that Catherine de' Medicis, who made her first public entry into Paris as queen in 1549, introduced into the French court the Italian feather-fans, in general use in Italy at that 144 PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) period ; these being made and sold by the perfumers who came in the queen's retinue. In a half-length engraved portrait in the British Museum, the queen bears a plumed fan with an elaborately ornamented handle garnished with pearls; in another portrait, a plumed fan with a mirror in the centre. Brantdme records that, upon the untimely death of the king, her husband, Catherine caused to be put round her device J broken fans, with the feathers falling to pieces and the mirror cracked;2 this in token of having abandoned worldly frivolities. In a small oval engraved portrait in the British Museum collection, this broken fan motif is introduced as forming a diapered border; the fans alternated with twisted cords and scythes. It is not until the reign of Henry in., that we find the first authentic evidence of the use of l'eventail plisse ; fans were then much in fashion, and, says Henri Estienne, 'were held so much in esteem, that, now the winter is come, the ladies cannot give them up, but having used them in summer to cool themselves against the heat of the sun, they make them serve in winter against the heat of the fire.'3 Pierre de l'Estoile, in his Isle des Hermaphrodites, 1588, gives us a detailed account of the fan used by this effeminate monarch, evidently some form of cockade, 'expanding and folding merely by a turn of the fingers.' It was sufficiently large to be used also as a parasol, and served therefore the double purpose of cooling the air, and preserving the delicate complexion of the king. The material was vellum, cut as delicately as possible, with lace around of similar stuff.4 ' I could see in the other chambers,' continues 1 Qui estoit un raontagne de chaux vive sur laquelle les gouttes d'eau du del tumboient a foison et disoient les mots tels en latin : ' Ardorem extincta testantur vivere flamma.' 2 Des eventails et pennaches rompus des carquans brises et ses pierreries et perles espandues par terre les chaisnes toutes en pieces ! 3 Deux Dialogues du nouveau Langage Francois, 1578. 4 II etoit d'un velin aussi delicatement decoupe qu'il etoit possible avec la dentelle a l'entour de pareille etoffe. T 145 HISTORY OF THE FAN this author, ' fans of the same material, or of taffetas, with borders of gold and silver lace.' This art of elaborate cutting, in vellum, paper, and other material, was, as a matter of fact, a favourite pastime of the period ; it is said to have been indulged in by the king himself, and it may be taken that this method of ddconpd, or ddcoupd in association with other forms of ornamentation, was employed in a large number of the fans of this epoch, both of the cockade and semicircular form. Of this latter type, now beginning to be the vogue, the Actaeon fan in the Musee de Cluny is one of the earliest known examples. The leaf is of parchment, cut in a series of slits through which the ten sticks, shaped to an ornamental profile, are inserted. The vellum around the sticks is painted to the shape of arrows ; the spaces between are cut away, to allow of the insertion of strips of mica, upon which are painted devices representing Actaeon, his hounds, a stag, a swan, etc. The general character of the ornamentation is that of the earlier French Renaissance ; the date, c. 1580. The fan industry in France had become of such importance under Henry iv., that it was necessary to regulate it by statute; certain concessions were therefore granted in December 1594 to the several bodies of craftsmen engaged in the art of fan-making. These were confirmed, and fresh regulations added, towards 1664. On a petition presented to Louis xiv. in 1673 by the master fan- makers to the number of sixty, they were constituted a corporate body by the edict of March 23rd of that year, and their privileges further strengthened by edicts of December 1676 and January and February 1678. These ordained that the company should be ruled by four jurors, two of whom were re-nominated every year in September in an assembly at which every master could assist irrespectively. No one could be a master without having served four years' apprenticeship and having produced 146 PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) a chef-d'oeuvre. Nevertheless, the sons of a master were exempt from the chef-d'oeuvre as well as the members who married the widows or daughters of masters. The widows enjoyed the privileges of their departed husbands so long as they remained single. They could not, however, engage new apprentices. The entrance fee was fixed at four hundred livres. In 1753, the period of the highest development of the industry, there were no less than one hundred and fifty master fan-makers in Paris, and from a rare book {fournal du Citoyen), published at the Hague in 1754, we learn the prices usually obtained : Wooden fans (les eVentails de bois de palissandre), 6 to 18 livres a dozen ; fans in gilt wood (bois d'or), 9 to 36 livres a dozen ; those partly of wood and partly of ivory (les maistres brins en yvoire et la gorge en os), 24 to 72 livres a dozen. Ivory fans, 48 to 60 livres a dozen ; others more elaborate sold for 30 or 40 pistoles apiece. The fan-makers were united with the wood-polishers and lute-makers by the edict of August nth, 1776, as was also the painting, carving, and varnishing relative to these crafts. The proportions of the folded fan have varied considerably at different periods, in obedience to the caprices of fashion, and this, together with other features, is a general indication as to date. An attempt is here made, by means of a series of diagrams, to formulate, from well-authenticated examples, a system of development ; but this can only be accepted in a general way, since during most periods, and especially during the eighteenth century, many exceptions to this rule might be cited. During the last half of the sixteenth century, doubtless, the general pro- portion of the fan was that of a fourth of a circle. Alex. Fabri, 1593, gives the costume of the French ladies of his time and of older date, and observes that these ladies held fans of a quarter circle plissds. Vecellio, 1600, gives fans of a similar proportion. These were both brisd and leaf; the fans of H7 HISTORY OF THE FAN Ferrara, decorated with mica insertion, were also of this shape. At this same period, fans were also made of a slightly extended width, the Actaeon fan of Cluny being an example. 155° 1550-1620 1620-1650 1660-1700 1680-1740 ■ 720-1760 1780 The width was gradually extended during the first half of the seven- teenth century, until, at the close of the reign of Louis xin., it had attained almost a full semicircle, the engraved fans of Abraham Bosse being authentic instances. During the reign of the Grand Monarque the mount is deep, the shoulder, as a consequence, low; the fan, after a slight reduction, again opening out to a full semicircle. The blades, which in the first half of the seventeenth century varied in France from four to eighteen, had increased 148 Cepfvalits <SL Aa^rorcL, Frcn^k* ■M *"* £}<^C-tL*>f/fbe^*7i f~jjfA Vernis Marti7v. M^FB.AL PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) by the end of the century to twenty-four or twenty-six, the number again falling to between eighteen to twenty-one by the middle of the succeeding century. During the reign of Louis xv. the width of the fan was lessened, being reduced to one-third of a circle, the shoulder being raised about 1720, thus leaving less space for the mount, the blades number- ing eighteen to twenty-two. In the succeeding reign (Louis xvi.) the fan once again unfolded itself to a full semicircle ; the blades were either straight and narrow, the incrusta- tions of a correspondingly reticent character, or very broad, showing no space between, the decorations extremely ornate ; their number in either instance varying from twelve to sixteen or eighteen. The above scale of proportion is, however, by no means absolute ; we have fans with high shoulders, and correspondingly shallow mounts during the period of Louis xiv. ; we also have, during the same period, fans which open out only to the third of a circle. The size of the folding-fan has also been subject to many variations. From the period of its introduction it increased under Louis xiv., fluctuated to the middle of the eighteenth century, and gradually lessened its propor- tions to the period of the Revolution and First Empire. In 1729 the Due de Richelieu writes : ' Small fans have quite gone out, and the newest are bigger than ever. Ladies are now never without them, summer or winter.' From the Mercure de France, October 1730, we learn that ' Many fans are of a very considerable price and excessively large, so that some little folks are not quite twice the height of their own fans, a circum- stance which ought to fill with a due sense of respect the light and playful cavaliers.' This continued during the hoop period or second blossoming of the whalebone petticoat, when the fan, not to be outdone, assumed similar vast proportions, and again dwindled to such an extent that it acquired the name of ' imperceptible.' Another important consideration in determining the date of a fan is 149 HISTORY OF THE FAN in the fact that the sticks, being of a more enduring substance than the mount, have often been remounted with paintings of a later date ; ' the careful collector will, therefore, in selecting a specimen, consider the fan in all its various characteristics — the style of the painting, and the general character of its ornamentation. Mr. S. Redgrave, in his catalogue of the fans exhibited at South Kensington in 1870, refers to the difficulty in assigning fans to the country to which their manufacture might be most correctly attributed : ' Workmen of one country have been tempted to another ; Chinese carvers brought to Europe ; parts of fans in which a particular country has excelled have been imported to another, and used with its native manufacture. In all cases, novel taste, approved by fashion, has never failed to become the object of universal imitation.' The art of painting during the reign of Louis xm. began to play a more important part in the decoration of fans ; the subject, in the few examples existing of this epoch, being usually enclosed in a florid cartouche with festoons of fruit, flowers, amorini, etc., as in the three engraved examples by Abraham Bosse, who was working in Paris at this period. Indeed it is extremely probable that the publication of these fans strongly influenced the character of the decoration of fan mounts ; it is more than possible that Bosse himself painted fans, since he was painter as well as engraver, although his pictures are extremely rare. The label, ' Iiventails de Bosse,' appearing on the box handed by the merchant to the lady in the engraving ' La Galerie du Palais,' may quite conceivably refer to painted as well as engraved fans. La Galerie du Palais, besides forming the subject of Bosse's engraving, supplied Corneille with the motif of one of his comedies produced in 1634. ' La Galerie ' was situated in the midst of the city, beside the Palais de 1 There are instances in which this order is reversed, the leaf having been preserved and mounted on more modern sticks. I50 Is \3 & % § si n n if PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) Justice, between the two branches of the Seine, and had become, at the close of the reign of Henry iv., a 'lively and animated centre.' In the latter years of the reign of Louis xm. it was, as we learn from the explanatory verses at the foot of Bosses engraving, as also from Corneille's comedy, a place of rendezvous for, and assignations with, the beau-monde. ' Icy faisant semblant d'acheter devant tous Des gands, des Eventails, du ruban, des danteles ; Les adroits Courtisans se donnent rendez-vous, Et pour se faire aimer, gallantisent les Belles.' It was furnished with wooden shops in which were arranged objcts de luxe, new fashions, chefs-dceuvres of industry, laces, and jewellery. The engraving shows a mercer's shop with a cavalier and lady examining fans, these objects being also exposed to view in the window. We have here a genuine bit of old Paris of the time of Louis xiii., and thus obtain a clear idea of what the Paris fan shops were like at this epoch. Fans had, indeed, at this period obtained a firm hold upon the affections of the fair, though not so firm as to preclude the possibility of a powerful rival. The witty author of the lines appended to Bosse's engraving of Summer, in the circular composition of the four seasons, a lady with a fan, accompanied by a Cupid bearing a parasol, suggests that the love-god himself would be a better substitute for the fan, not only for cooling the heated cheek, but also to assuage the fire that burns within. ' Qu'n eventail dans la chaleur Semble oster de cette couleur Dont votre teint rougit encore ; Vous ressemblez presque a l'aurore A cause de cette rougeur Mais dans cette simple douleur Qui semble afliger votre cceur Est-ce tout ce qui vous honore Qu'n eventail ? 151 HISTORY OF THE FAN Changez viste votre maleur Et sans me cr6re caioleur Aimable Phylis que j'adore Croiez, qu'au feu qui vous deuore Un home vous servit meilleur Qu'n eventail.' Authenticated examples of Louis xm. fans are exceedingly rare. In the Jubinal collection at Paris is a superb fan painted on skin, representing the king playing blind-man's buff with the four quarters of the globe. This is designed upon the same principle as the three engraved fans of Bosse above referred to, i.e. the subject enclosed in a large and elaborate cartouche, filling the whole field of the fan, a system of decoration which lasted well into the reign of Louis xiv. The Countess de Beaussier exhibited at South Kensington, in 1870, a mount of vellum painted with a large medallion or cartouche in the centre, of lords and ladies of the court of France joining in a dance in a park, the border enriched with coloured ornament in the style of the period. During the earlier part of the reign of Louis xm., Anne of Austria, his queen, introduced many Spanish fashions into France, amongst them being fans. It is recorded of this princess that, during a conference with Richelieu, some kittens amused themselves with the ribbons of her fan which had been left on a table in the antechamber ; from this circumstance the ribbons acquired the name of Badins (playful).1 It was from a similar light incident that, later, at the time of the unpopularity of Mazarin, the fan became a means of expressing political intrigue. Straw was adopted as the rallying sign of the Frondeurs, who, after the victory in Paris, wore it in their hats and button-holes. 1 Ribbons constantly appear on the fans depicted in Bosse's engravings, either at the side, half-way up the panache, or at the rivet. 152 1 h »s if s Ml «1 in PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) ' If without straw a man was seen, Strike him down! was the general scream, For 'tis but a dog of a Mazarine.' A great crowd was applauding the king and princess in the great allege, and crying out against Mazarin. Mademoiselle had appeared holding a fan as she walked, to which was attached a bouquet of straw bound with blue ribbon. Straw also formed part of the decoration of fans, both at this period and later. The pattern of leaves, flowers, fruits, or conventional ornament, was cut in various coloured straws and applied. The handsome fan in the possession of Lady Bristol, with the subject of Hector and Andromache, after Antoine Coypel, belonging, however, to a later period, is decorated at the sides with coloured straw-work. This material was even employed in the decoration of the stick in the form of inlay upon ivory and other substance; an example occurs in the collection of Mr. L. C. R. Messel. This also of a much later period. DAlembert, in his Reflexions et Anecdotes sur la Reine de Suede, recounts how the irascible, fierce, and railing daughter of Gustavus Adolphus found herself at the court of Louis xiv., when the fashion of fans was general (1656- 1657). Consulted by a fair Frenchwoman as to whether she should ply her fan even during the winds of winter, Christina replied that the lady might fan herself or not, as she pleased ; either way she would be a straw blown about by the wind. Upon this, the court dames, nettled at the rude reply of the haughty mistress of Monaldeschi, one and all armed themselves with fans, and waved them furiously when- ever the queen was present, by way of exhibiting a wholesome French contempt for northern barbarism.1 1 The well-known story of the portrait of Christina, painted by Michael Dahl, may be given. One day, while the Queen was sitting to him, she asked him what he intended to put in her hand. ' A fan, please your Majesty.' 'A fan ! ' exclaimed Christina, starting up with a tremendous oath. ' A fan !— A lion, man, is fitter for the Queen of Sweden.' The Order of the Fan was instituted later by Louisa Ulrica, in 1744, for the ladies of the Swedish court, in which the sterner sex was afterwards included. U 153 HISTORY OF THE FAN This circumstance led to the adoption of fans of a richer and more ornate description. Fashion hastened to make the toy worthy of figuring in grand adornment ; the ordinary wood of the stick was replaced by other supports of a more precious material, with incrustations of gold, silver, enamel, and jewels. More capable artists were employed for the execution of the mounts; the eventaillistes learnt from the Italians to derive their inspiration from the great masters of their school. The decoration of the fan-leaves, therefore, acquired something of the suavity, graciousness, and courtliness associated with the work of the painters of the Grand Siecle. It was, doubtless, some such fan, some enchanting reminiscence of the dainty ' putti ' of Poussin, that Madame de Sevignd sent to her daughter, Madame de Grignan. — 'The Chevalier de Buous brings you a fan, which I think very pretty: they are not little loves upon it, for without doubt they are little chimney-sweeps, the most charming little sweeps in the world.' x Two fans are known of the beginning of the reign of the Grand Monarque. One, of which only the feuille is preserved, is in the possession of Mr. J. G. Rosenberg, of Karlsruhe, the other in the Schreiber collection, British Museum. The former is painted in gouache on swan skin, and represents the signing of the marriage contract between Louis xiv. and Maria Theresa, which event took place at St. Jean de Luz on the Spanish frontier in 1660. The king and queen are seated before a table in the centre, the courtiers standing in a semicircle, the men in their fur- trimmed robes, the ladies all bearing fans ; an official in the foreground is reading aloud the marriage contract. The pattern of the carpet is seized upon as a decorative motif, and forms a diapered groundwork to the composition after the manner of the earlier miniaturists. This truly magnificent mount betrays no evidence of the Italian influence ; no suggestion of ' le premier peintre du Roi,'2 but entirely reminiscent 1 Letter 491, 8 Mai 1676. 2Le Brun was appointed 'premier peintre' in 1662, with twelve thousand francs a year. 154 PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) of the great traditional French style. It is, moreover, an original pro- duction, rather than, as is the case of so many fan leaves, a mere tran- scription of the work of the greater artists. In the Schreiber fan leaf, the king and queen are seated under a canopy, a Cupid above bearing a rose garland and palm branch. The ladies of the court, all holding fans, are seated around in a semicircle, and on the right Cupids prepare the nuptial couch. This leaf, which has been much repainted, is in gouache on paper, with gilding in places ; it has been removed from the mount and pasted on an oak panel. On a later fan, the king is represented as Phcebus descending from his chariot, holding in his hand the mirror of truth to the assembled court beauties, on whose countenances fear, alarm, and doubt appear. A figure on the right (Louise de la Valliere) opens her arms eagerly to receive him. The king also appears as Endymion sleeping on Mount Latmos. La Valliere, in the character of Diana, is alighting from her chariot and contemplating the beautiful shepherd. A figure of Spring scatters flowers. In the background two attendants of the goddess; c. 1660. Mr. Robert Walker in his sale catalogue (1882) suggests that these two fans, the sticks of which have perished and have been replaced by those of old English workmanship, were painted for the Duchess de la Valliere in the early time of her attendance at the court of Anne of Austria. She is said to have formed a real and virtuous attachment to the king. A fan mount in the Schreiber collection, also belonging to the earlier years of the reign of Louis xiv., has for its subject the ' Lovers' Agency Bureau.' In the midst of a semicircular temple, on an island surrounded by a flowered border, is a golden statue of Cupid seated upon a globe, bearing a banner inscribed, ' L' Amour Avec ces traits Veut blesser tout Le monde. Je Reigne dans les sieux Sur la terre et Sur londe.' Cupids are seated at a table covered with green cloth, serving amorous couples 155 HISTORY OF THE FAN with tablets inscribed, 'Conge- Pour Un Amant Constant: Conge" Pour Un Fidelle'; ' Conge" pour La Belle Iris.' In front of the table a Cupid is seated on a large crimson cushion, holding a scroll inscribed, ' Le Directeur Du Bureau D'amour.' Two figures are kneeling at the end of the table, the one holding a purse, the other a scroll inscribed, ' Contract De Constitution De Rente.' In the foreground on either side are couples who have married for money — a young man holding a purse is accom- panied by an elderly woman, and an old man who supports himself on a crutch, accompanied by a young woman, is carrying a box labelled ' Bijouteri ' ; in both instances a Cupid follows them with a rod for punish- ment. Around the island are moored ships with banners inscribed, ' Vous qui cherchez D'un Amoureux Desir,' etc. The fan leaf has been pasted on an oval panel and repainted to com- plete the shape. The fine varnish, celebrated in the verse of Voltaire,1 which has become associated with the name of Martin, was not, properly speaking, a new invention, but rather a fresh application of an old method. Attempts had been made during the reign of Louis xiv. to imitate the lacquers of Japan, and the process was first applied to furniture. In an inventory of the effects of Moliere we read of a 'small cabinet with Chinese varnish,' and of ' two dice-boxes of wood, varnished after the Chinese fashion.' This was the period when the artistic products of the East were so much exercising the minds of European craftsmen, as a consequence of the opening up of China and Japan to western traders. The four brothers Martin, William, Simon-Etienne, Julien, and Robert, coach-painters, sons of a tailor of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, in applying themselves to the task of imitating the processes of Oriental 1 ... 'Courant de belle en belle, Sous des lambris doris et Vernis par Martin.' 156 PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) lacquer, by a fortunate accident developed a method admirably suited to the decoration of fans, which, in spite of many attempts to imitate, has never since been rivalled. Two concessions were obtained — those of November 27, 1730, and February 18, 1744, permitting the elder Martin, for the space of twenty years, to execute all sorts of works in relief after the manner of the Chinese and Japanese. An advertisement in Le Mercure, which appeared during the year 1724, recommends to the curious the fine productions in Chinese and Japanese varnish, of this 'excellent and unique craftsman who imitates and often surpasses his models.'1 In 1732 a fresh announcement is made in the same journal to the effect that ' Le Sieur Martin the elder, who may be said to have considerably enriched the beaux-arts in Europe by imitating and even surpassing in many respects the beautiful varnishes and reliefs of China and Japan, gives notice to the public that he under- takes panels, friezes, ceilings, carriages, etc., in splendid varnishings.' This varnish, with its brilliant translucency, and its remarkable im- munity from cracking, was applied over painting done in the ordinary oil method, the painting being necessarily thin, almost to transparency, the material of the fan usually ivory. The decoration consists of either a single subject covering the whole field of the fan, or a system of one, three, or many cartouches, occasionally as many as twenty miniatures, enclosed in an ornamental setting, made up of a curious mixture of Chinese diapered patterns, semi-naturalistic semi-Persian ornament, Italian arabesques, and French ornament of the character with which we are familiar in Rouen ware. The guards are in most instances decorated with miniatures, usually two superior and two inferior, divided by ornamental borders or 1 ' I.es cabinets ou Martin A surpasse l'art de la Chine.' — Voltaire. 157 HISTORY OF THE FAN arabesques. On the handle end of the fan, i.e. the smaller semicircle, are either one, three, or more miniatures, often imitation Chinese subjects : these, in some instances, are in self-colour, as pink, red, or blue. The gilding is both in leaf and painted, usually worked over with a pattern in red or brown. The figure-painting is in no instance by a master-hand, i.e. by an artist of the first calibre, but by skilled workmen, or artificers, deriving their inspiration from outside sources. The subjects with which these fans were decorated embrace every class. Thus we have representations of ancient history, both sacred and profane, subjects which recorded important current events, subjects fanciful of almost every description. That of the ' Rape of Helen ' occurs often ; the fine fan in the posses- sion of Mr. J. G. Rosenberg of Karlsruhe has this subject for its principal medallion, the style recalling Le Brun, with sixteen smaller subjects from classic mythology, these divided by a gold band. Also in the beautiful example in the possession of Lady Lindsay this same subject is treated, though in a very different manner. (Illustrated facing p. 30.) In the cabinet of Madame Riant is the 'Judgment of Paris,' the subject en cartouche, with smaller cartouches in the Chinese taste. Probably one of the earliest of these ' Vernis Martin ' fans (ivory brisd fans had been painted earlier, during the latter part of the sevententh cen- tury) is the bridal-fan of the Duchess of Burgundy, Adelaide of Savoy, mother of Louis xv. The subject represents the fetes at Versailles on the occasion of the marriage of the grandson of Louis xiv. in 1709. On the obverse the bride appears seated upon a dais with attendants bearing floral offerings. In the centre the king dances a minuet with Madame de Maintenon, ' ma tante,' as the dauphin endearingly called her. Other dancing figures, musicians, etc., complete the composition, which is en- 158 *5 $ 5 PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) closed in a large cartouche of fruits, masks, instruments, etc.; on the field of the fan are representations of country life. On the lower semicircle, en cartouche, the bride again appears playing a guitar, the remaining space being occupied by subjects of a Chinese character. On the reverse we have a representation of the fetes in the palace gardens, with scenes from the life of the prince — as pupil of Fdnelon, and as lover ; miniatures of the prince and princess appear on the panaches. This important fan has been attributed to the pencil of Watteau, but with small grounds, being quite unlike the character of Watteau's work except in the type of some of the figures represented. The example which formed part of the royal collection at Windsor Castle is so well known that it scarcely needs description here. It con- sists of a large number of cartouches of classical and pastoral subjects divided by gold borderings. It formerly belonged to Marie-Antoinette, and was procured for Her Majesty Queen Victoria by the Queen of the Belgians. The fan representing the ' Toilette of Madame la Marquise de Montespan,' and ' the Promenade,' in the possession of the Countess Duchatel, has become historic. It was sent by Madame de Sevigne* to her daughter, Madame de Grignan, and is thus referred to in her 149th letter : ' My fan has then become most useful, doubtless. Do you not think it beautiful? Alas, what a bagatelle! You would not take away from me this small pleasure when occasion presents itself — you would thank me for that pleasure, although it is a mere nothing.' We are enabled, by the courtesy of Mr. Leopold de Rothschild, to illustrate (facing p. 142) one of the best-preserved examples of this interest- ing type of fan. The subject represents a company of musicians in a garden, with trellised background and fountain ; on the lower cartouche a classical landscape ; on the panaches are figures of Harlequin, Pierrot, etc., the ornamental portions being painted with the most minute finish. 159 HISTORY OF THE FAN Upon the death of the elder Martin in 1749, his widow associated herself with her brother-in-law, Julien Martin, who was acquainted with the secrets of this varnish and method. The studio at the entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Denis, therefore, did not cease to prosper, and pro- duction went on until 1758. This at least we learn of the engraver Pasquier, and it seems to us that the most successful varnishes are the earliest in date — those which appear to have been produced 1720-1745.1 The foregoing quotation refers to Martin's productions generally, but is equally applicable to the fan, and it is probable that although a few isolated examples of these delicate objects may have been produced during the latter years of the reign of Louis xiv., production did not become very general until later in the lifetime of Martin the elder, who subsequently received the title of 'Vernisseur du roi.' The question as to whether the brothers Martin themselves painted their fans, or to what extent they were indebted to outside assistance, opens up an interesting field of inquiry. The order of their production, also, presents considerable difficulties. In some cases, as that of the bridal- fan of the Duke of Burgundy, the event itself determines the date ; in the majority of instances, however, the subject affords no clue, and any con- clusions formed are necessarily more or less speculative and problematical. The natural order of decorative development is from simplicity to complexity in both arrangement and detail ; it is therefore reasonable to assume that the earlier examples are those displaying a certain severity and reticence of style and method, and a simple arrangement of either one or but few subjects, and that the later fans are those exhibiting a profusion of medallions of various sizes, divided by gold bands. The variety in the style, manner, and handling, of the subjects depicted on these fans, to say nothing of the number extant, of itself disposes of the theory that they were all the work of the brothers, but in any case they must be credited 1 Piul Mantz, Gazette ties Beaux-Arts, vol. xx, l6o * < 4 PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) with the original conception of a style and method of decoration which, although it will scarcely bear searching analysis if judged from the stand- point of strict decorative principles, is fresh, piquant, and unique. To return to pleated fans. In the Franks collection appeared an example with the leaf of paper finely painted in gouache, with the betrothal of Louis xv. with Marie Leczinska, and on the reverse a pastoral scene. The brins and panaches are of white pearl, richly ornamented with carved medallions of figures, portraits, heraldry, and scroll-work in different coloured gold foils. This fan belonged to Marie, queen of Louis xv. The bridal-fan of Marie Leczinska has a skin mount, the subject representing the king and his bride elect, attended by Cardinal Fleury in lay habit, bringing offerings of flowers to the altar of Hymen ; a dog (emblem of fidelity) sits beside the king. In the foreground on either side are groups in rural character ; on the reverse, which is of paper, is a pastorelle in which the royal couple again appear. The brins and panaches are of mother-of-pearl, richly carved with a centre medallion representing the queen as Venus descending from her chariot, receiv- ing the homage of Mars. Cupids, heraldic devices, fleurs de lys, and a small medallion of Louis xiv. complete the design, which is enriched with variegated gilding. The symbolical marriage of Louis xv. with Marie Leczinska on Mount Olympus is depicted on a fine mount of vellum in the possession of M. Voisin, with portraits of the king and princess surrounded by Genii ; figures of Jupiter, Juno, and Apollo en cartouche, musicians, etc., in rose camai'eu, surrounded by the arms of France and Poland ; the reverse, a figure subject in blue camai'eu on silver ground. Stick, ' Vernis Martin ' on ivory ; guards, incrustations of mother-of-pearl. The fan in the collection of the Dowager-Marchioness of Bristol refers to the improvements made in Paris during the reign of Louis xv. ; it x 161 HISTORY OF THE FAN shows in the distance the fine square (Place de Louis xv.) which adjoined the Palace of the Tuileries, with the bronze equestrian statue of the king on a pedestal supported by four statues representing Strength, Peace, Prudence, and Justice. The group, destroyed during the Revolution, gave occasion to the following epigram : ' O la belle Statue ! O le beau piedestal ! Les vertus sont a pied, le vice est a cheval ! ' The king, attended by Minerva, who holds her aegis over his head, is giving directions as to the building to a kneeling figure whose cloak and shield are ornamented with the fleurs de lys of France. A seated winged genius is holding a large open book, Cupids are playing musical instruments and supporting a trophy of arms and a medallion portrait of Louis xiv. The square will remain for ever memorable as the scene of the execution of Louis xvi. It was renamed Place de la Revolution. The stick is of ivory, carved with allegorical subjects, variegated gold enrichments, the imbricated ornament painted blue, the guards inlaid with mother-of-pearl ; on the reverse a tent, with soldiers drinking and smok- ing at a table. Jewelled pin. Of the fans referring to the courtship and marriage of the dauphin (son of Louis xv.) we have the royal courtships in two medallions on either side of the sun in full splendour (emblem of the king), decorated with spangles ; the mount of skin, the stick ivory, carved in open work with appropriate figures. In the centre cartouche of another fan, similar in treatment and evidently by the same hand, the dauphin and dauphine bring floral offerings to Hymen, the field of the fan being occupied by two smaller medallions of Cupids, miniatures of the royal pair, and marriage emblems at intervals, the cartouches connected by spangles ; the stick ivory, carved in open work with figures emblematic of the marriage. The marriage of the dauphin with Maria Theresa of Spain (1745), or his 162 h * N RQ J •3 5 1 * I \ M n N \ "Si -S 1 ■h 1 % PQ Si PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) second wife, Princess Maria Josephe de Saxe, is recorded on a magnificent mount representing the interior of a chapel, with the bride and bridegroom on a raised dais, a cardinal performing the ceremony. These three fans appeared in the Walker sale of 1882. The Battoir fan (illustrated facing p. 154) would appear to refer to this Spanish marriage ; it is certainly a marriage fan. The feuille of paper is decorated with eight variously shaped medallions. In the centre the bride, who bears a sufficient resemblance to the engraved portraits of Maria Theresa, is taking tea ; also a heart-shaped composition with two figures kneeling at the altar of Love, Father Time in the distance ; a lover offering a bouquet to a lady, etc. The admirably designed stick and guards are of ivory, carved and gilt, decorated with emblematic figures, amorini, trophies of musical instruments, etc., bearing the fleurs de lys of France and the arms of Spain. The magnificent fan in the possession of Mrs. Bischoffsheim reflects the general interest taken in the classics during the earlier part of the eighteenth century. Dryden's English translation of Virgil was given to the world in 1697, and the Latin edition of P. Masvicius, Leovardiae, 17 17, contained the commentaries of Servius, Philargyrius, and Pierius. The fan belongs to the earlier years of the reign of Louis xv., and illustrates the story unfolded in the first book of the Aineid. On the reverse the storm raised by yEolus at the bidding of Juno, a rock in the foreground being inscribed ' Naufrage d'Ende' : and the meeting of Venus and yEneas. On the obverse the banquet : ' Embroidered coverlets Are laid, and gorgeous purple ; and the boards Groan with the massive silver.' The love-god, in the guise of the boy Ascanius, is presented to Dido : He — after he has clasped Eneas' neck In fond embrace, and so has satisfied 163 HISTORY OF THE FAN The doating love of his pretended sire — Turns to the Queen. Her eyes and all her soul She fixes on him ; yea, and in her lap At times she fondles him — unhappy Dido — Not knowing how great a god is nestling there ! ' ' The so-called ' Cabriolet ' fan, introduced during the reign of Louis xv., represents a new and interesting development. In this the mount is divided into two parts, superior and inferior, the latter being half-way up the stick, the former in its usual place at the top; the intervening space imparting a lightness and richness to the fan not obtainable by other means, the mount still affording a sufficiency of space for decoration on a less extended scale. This usually consists of Parisian scenes — persons driving in cabriolets, or promenading, either painted or engraved as the case may be, since both processes were adopted. The cabriolet, introduced by Josiah Child in 1755, was a light two- wheeled carriage which obtained great popularity in Paris. Horace Walpole, writing to his friend Mann in the same year, says : ' All we hear from France is, that a new madcap reigns there, as strong as that of Pantins was.1 This is la fureur de cabriolets, Anglice one-horse chairs, a mode introduced by Mr. Child. Everything is to be en cabriolet; the men paint them on their waistcoats, have them embroidered for clocks to their stockings, and the women, who have gone all the winter without anything on their heads, are now muffled up in great caps, with round sides, in the form of, and scarce less than, the wheels of chaises.' Two varieties of these rare fans appear in different collections ; a larger and richer fan measuring some twenty inches and opening out to a little more than a third of a circle, the sticks numbering twenty-one, including the panaches ; another about an inch smaller, with less carving on the sticks, and made at a later date. 1 Translation by Henry Smith Wright, B.A. 2 'Pantins Mechanique,' a performing figure worked by a string, much in vogue at this period. See Engraved Fans of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, part i. page 226. 164 3 1 g s ^ * t ■ o 1 ^ t r A H "3 a. "a c S 0 0 PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) The fine example illustrated from the collection of Lady Bristol has nine cabriolets, two on the larger and three on the smaller paper mounts, two on the brins, and two on the panaches. The upper portion of the ivory stick is carved with three series of three figures enclosed in an ornamental setting, and one on each panache, with ' goldfish ' inlay. The lower portion has two large cartouches of figure subjects also with ' goldfish ' inlay, and a smaller one painted, the whole of the stick elaborately painted and gilt. A similar fan is in the possession of the Comtesse de Chambrun, Paris, and was exhibited at South Kensington in 1870. Two examples of the smaller variety are given from the collections of Lady Northcliffe and Lady Bristol, similar in general character, but presenting slight differences in detail. On each of these fans only one cabriolet appears, painted decoration taking the place of the rich carving and gilding on the stick of the larger fan. Towards the end of the reign of Louis xv. the fan industry suffered a temporary relapse: the fashion for the cheaper printed fans, and also for the importations from the East, spread even to the aristocrats. We read of a fashionable jeweller at this period undertaking to supply to La Pompadour a dozen fans direct from Nankin for the insignificant sum of seventy-two livres. An interesting design for a fan in the Hennin collection (Bibliotheque Nationale) is probably intended as an effort to revive interest in the more expensive fans,1 and is inscribed, ' Combat du terrible torreau repr£sente par des enfants en presence de Sa Majeste Louis xv., roi de France et de Navarre.' This was a spectacle devised for the king's amusement in 1760. In an enclosure, a bull-fight, in which the actors are children, is taking place before a large concourse of spectators, including the king and queen ; on the left are trumpeters and other figures, on the right is a figure holding three hounds in leash. 1 Henri Bouchot, ' History on Fans ' (Art and Letters, vol. ii.). 165 HISTORY OF THE FAN La Pompadour is glorified on a skin mount in the collection of Mrs. Bruce Johnston ; the subject being ' hommages ' offered by Church, State, Literature, Art and Music at the altar of madame, who appears as Venus seated on a raised throne in the centre of the composition, her car and doves in the background. A Cupid strikes at her bosom with his arrow, others dance to the music of a mandoline, while another, crowned with a laurel wreath, rides on the back of the French Eagle. This was probably painted by one of the numerous artists employed by madame, and never mounted. (Illustrated facing p. 6.) The story of Rinaldo and Armida supplied the subject of many fans produced during the century. Handel's opera Rinaldo was first produced in London, February 24, 171 1. It was staged in the most sumptuous manner, the gardens of Armida being filled with live birds, a piece of stage realism hardly to be surpassed even in these days : it had, however, little vogue on the Continent, duck's Armide, which appeared in 1777, fared better, the composer being then in the height of his popularity, and, moreover, under the powerful protection of his former pupil, Marie-Antoinette, who, upon the success of Orphte, granted him a pension of six thousand francs, and a like sum for every fresh work he should produce on the French stage. The charming fan, here illustrated, by the gracious permission of H.R.H. the Princess of Wales, is anterior to the date of the production of Gluck's opera, and is one of the best of the numerous versions of the subject. It was given by King William iv. to Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge, and left by her to her granddaughter, Victoria Mary, Princess of Wales. (Frontispiece.) In Miss Moss's fan, also illustrated, the stick is of ivory carved a jour, and painted with a cartouche in the centre, of Neptune, Venus, and Cupid. The fetes given on the occasion of the marriage of the young dauphin, afterwards Louis xvi., with Marie-Antoinette, are recorded 166 ^ <4 5 K k R s^ h h * 5 i> •55 « ■A * 41 £.! ^ PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) on a fan in the Wyatt collection, in the centre of which are shown the illuminations with fireworks, a scroll inscribed, 'Vive la France, l'empire, et tous leurs allies a jamais ' ; above is inscribed, ' Feu d'artifice de Mr. L'ambassadeur Execute le 10 Juin 1770 par le Sr. Torre Artificier du Roi.' On the left is a street scene with a band of musicians and spectators ; on the right, four figures viewing the illuminations. A cartouche on the right is inscribed, ' Fetes Publiques a l'occasion du manage de Mr. le Dauphin.' The mount is of paper, the stick and guards ivory, pierced gilt, and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. (Illustrated facing p. 180.) An allegory of this marriage appears as the subject of a fan that formed part of an important collection of a deceased Parisian lady, Madame X., sold at the Hotel Drouot, April 1897. In this the stick is mother-of-pearl, carved with reliefs, gilt, and the arms of France and Austria. The leaf is in gouache on skin, with medallions of the royal pair, alternated with others emblematic of the Fine Arts. Another bridal-fan of Marie-Antoinette has on the obverse an alle- gorical composition, in which the dauphine, enthroned upon a cloud, is about to sign the marriage contract which Cupid lays before her, while Hymen hovers above : on the left, the Graces weave garlands of roses; on the right, Midas and Discordia are banished to the regions of obscurity. On the reverse, Louis and his young bride appear walking in a wood, guided by Cupid, blind, and bearing a torch. Both these subjects have been attributed to Fragonard ; they are, however, most certainly by two different hands. The stick is mother-of-pearl, carved a jour, with figures of the royal couple, cupids, and other appropriate emblems. The custom of presenting fans on the occasion of a wedding was universal, and surely no more acceptable offering than a fan could be made to a bride. The fine fan, illustrated by the kindness of the Countess of Bradford, is typical of a whole class of fans produced during 167 HISTORY OF THE FAN the latter years of the reign of Louis xvi., having silk mounts, with painted medallions, usually one superior, and the other inferior ; the borders and intervening spaces decorated with spangles of gold, silver, and colours ; the sticks either broad and ornate as in the example given, or narrow ; the ornamentation being of a more reticent character. The principal medallion figures the prospective bride and bridegroom nursing a figure of Love. On the extremely ornate mother-of-pearl stick, lavishly gilt in dead and burnished gold of two colours, the happy pair again appear clasping hands before the altar of Hymen, with an accompaniment of Cupids ; on the two inferior cartouches are dancing figures with wreaths, spangling being applied here as on the leaf. The fan appeared at the recent exhibition of Fair Women at the Grafton Galleries, where it attracted much attention. On the occasion of the birth of the dauphin, (Louis xvn.) in 1785, eleven years after the marriage, the royal pair renew their vows at the altar of Hymen. This on a fan from the unfortunate queen's collection, which, together with the last mentioned, appeared at the Walker sale in 1882 ; the mount skin, the stick mother-of-pearl, carved in open with portraits of the queen and the young dauphin. The fan (brisd) presented by the town of Dieppe to Marie-Antoinette, in celebration of the same event,1 is declared by Balzac to be the hand- somest of all historical fans. It is of ivory open work, carved by the famous worker Le Flamand, eulogised by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. The subject, from the design for Vien, premier peintre to Louis xvi., is an episode in the life of Alexander the Great. Porus, an Indian prince, on the eastern bank of the Hydaspes, refused to submit to Alexander, but, defeated and taken prisoner, he was brought into the presence of the con- 1 A congratulatory address on this occasion was offered to the Queen by the market-women of Paris, written by M. de la Harpe on the inside of the fan of the spokeswoman, to which she repeatedly referred without the least embarrassment. — Henry F. Holt, Journal of the Archtcological Association, vol. xxvi. 168 JTC17V stlCK, Irory, carved witL *u£>Je<.t ^ ' tk Ajjmfu efjVo~ti2.6Uj ff<f7, figures ofZ^ctU* jLVJ & Adarte. AnZcinettt on^pan^xch^s. Photo by A. Giranthr. ■j. '.--■ a4*'/^o*^y-re-. PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) queror. Asked how he expected to be treated, he boldly replied, 'As a brave man and a king.' Alexander, subdued by his foe's firmness, restored to him his conquered territory. When the queen was obliged to quit Versailles in 1789, she gave this fan to Madame du Cray, who was keeper of her Majesty's laces. From Madame du Cray it passed into the possession of her daughter, Madame la Bruyere, who, at her death, bequeathed it to Monsieur de Thiac, by whom it was exhibited at South Kensington in 1870. The ivory stick — the mount has long since perished, if it ever pos- sessed one — acquired by the Louvre, and formerly in the collection Revoil, in 1828, is said to have been once the property of Marie- Antoinette. The brins carved are with a subject of the king, with the two royal princes on his right hand, receiving a deputation of ministers, the whole enclosed within a florid and meandering cartouche, the background and diapers a jour. On the panaches appear figures of Louis and Marie-Antoinette, above their heads two genii bear the royal crown ; on the gorge are medallions of Cupids, with tragic and comic masks. Here, then, we have two typical examples of the ivory work of the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the best, presumably, that the epoch could produce, since both were executed for the queen. The last named, last also in the order of production, although it carries picturesque richness of effect to its utmost possible limit, nevertheless represents a worn-out tradition, an art which had become moribund, lifeless, incapable of any fresh effort, repeating the same tiresome platitudes with wearing and monotonous persistency; the former, on the other hand, indicative of the commencement of that regeneration of French art, which, inaugurated by Vien, ultimately resulted in the creation of a school of painting and design, finding, in the vitality of its poetic invention, no parallel in modern Europe, and making its influence felt even to the present day. y 169 HISTORY OF THE FAN The reign of Spartan simplicity of dress commenced early, and was brought about by several causes, the first being the visit to Paris of the American deputies, headed by Benjamin Franklin, 1776-78. Thus Count de Segur in his ' Memoirs ' : ' It was as if the sages of Greece and Rome had suddenly appeared ; their antique simplicity of dress, their firm and plain demeanour, their free and direct language, formed a contrast to the frivolity, effeminacy, and servile refinements of the French. The tide of fashion and nobility ran after these republicans, and ladies, lords, and men of letters all worshipped them.' Among other contributory causes was the publication of Saint-Pierre's novel, Paul et Virginie, in which the heroine is described as being attired in a simple robe of white muslin, with plain straw hat, a picture which instantly captivated the Parisiennes. Moreover, the classic revival which set in about the middle of the century had gathered force, so that by the commencement of the Revolution the time had become ripe for a complete change. While the ladies were attired a la Grec, the gentle- men cropped their hair a la Romain. The fan followed the prevailing order of things, and affected sim- plicity. During the period of the Directoire, and the Empire which succeeded, the painted mounts gradually disappeared, their place being taken by those of silk of various colours, ornamented with spangles and similar devices. The mount of Miss Ethel Birdwood's fan, an excellent example of the simple type, is most certainly French, obtained in France by the grandparents of Sir George, who were expelled Huguenots, and sent out by them to Canton to be mounted. The stick is admirably in keeping with the reticent character of the mount, and exhibits no trace of the characteristic Oriental vice of excess in ornamental detail. It was inevitable that a system of decoration so easy of application, and at the same time so effective as spangling, should have an extended 170 Dtrectotre f^LTLt preen, silk 7T\otL.Tit,st><**ujud rnctker of bearL slvcJ*. ca.r-vecL < <X 10LCT-. V tSarusGerie cC Jytr^e^toire Funs ; rcdjlik mount*, sticks ivory and eoan-y Tej&e^r-LveLy . /Wurrf It'thcl 7ra.r&nrjE$^*'d+*00<£'- MrUZRJ*l~*U. jScltls Gene Fart , i-&aj a r&c n Jt- ■Uk MritA. -rvynT-e cT Emptre TLZTl, Uaf red silk r*tth hand of net £ er/v*t7nen.t~ *,n ooL*.{.§ si.L*e.T* cZ .< pctTx*jL*z-s t jticJ*. t-vory, Zxinf*. ct Air LCJZJiUssd. c-rrm^rcm. . PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) vogue. The device was first introduced as a framework to pictures or miniatures en cartouche, and as emphasising the leading lines of a design. Gradually a more lavish use of these glistening ornaments was made, until, during the Directoire and Empire periods, spangling formed the chief decorative motif of the design ; figures being treated with spangled draperies, the flesh painted. In the Directoire fan illustrated, with Ceres in a chariot drawn by two bullocks, spangling is carried to its utmost limit, the whole subject, figures, animals, chariot, and accessories, being treated with these little gold and silver discs of varying sizes. This refers to the F£te de l'Agriculture celebrated by the adminis- tration of the department of the Seine 10 messidor an vi. (28 June 1798). A lavishly ornamented car drawn by six bullocks, their hoofs and horns gilded, the whole decorated with wreaths of flowers, was accompanied by the Free Trade Society of Agriculture, and the administrators of the Natural History Museum and Veterinary School, carrying agricultural implements, surmounted by a sheaf of corn, over which floated the oriflamme of France ; their destination being the Temple dedicated to Cybele in the middle of the grand square of the Champs Elysees. The ancient form of the chariot, says Blondel, the groups of stationary guards with entwined arms, indicating thereby that those around cultivate and defend the fields, serve equally to represent agricul- ture to the imagination and the ancient fetes that fertile Phrygia celebrated in honour of the goddess of Harvests at the foot of Mount Ida. The event was commemorated on a number of fans, both painted in gouache and printed ; Blondel figures one in the possession of the heir of Madame Tallien, printed and coloured by hand, erroneously supposing it to refer to this event ; 1 in this instance also, as in the example illustrated facing p. 136, two bullocks only are represented. This glorification of Ceres and Cybele led to the general adoption 1 See Engraved Fans of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, page 227. 171 HISTORY OF THE FAN of straw for the various articles of costume, following an older fashion. 'There is nothing but straw in the impoverished dresses of the ladies,' exclaim MM. de Goncourt in their Socidtd Francaise pendant le Directoire, echoing a curious vaudeville of the period, ' mob caps of straw, bonnets of straw, fans of straw, and spangles — nothing is made without spangles.' ' Paillette aux bonnets, Aux toquets, Aux petits corsets ! Paillette Aux fins bandeaux, Aux grands chapeaux ! Paillette Aux noirs colliers, Aux blancs souliers ! Paillette Paillette aux rubans, Aux turbans, On ne voit rien sans Paillette.' In the ' Sans Gfine ' fan, with figure of an opera dancer, the dress of the lady is pink gauze. The material of the leaf (green silk) is cut away, leaving the dress semi-transparent in those parts which are not overlaid with spangles. During the Empire period and later, this system of the introduction of gauze or net was carried further, fans being treated with a broad border of net, and various applied decorations in gold, silver, and spangles, these being the precursors of the fans made entirely of gauze or net, decorated in a similar manner, and in vogue during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Lorgnette or opera-glass fans are evidence of a fashion that obtained 172 £•* V „.. v .• ■••• • • J,.«i\ %g' '..*•• .... i 4 ^ a U 4 v it PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) during the seventeenth and again during the latter half of the eighteenth centuries. M. Blondel quotes from Menagiana as follows : — 'The fans a jour carried by the women, when they go to Porte Saint-Bernard to take the air on the bank of the river, are called "lorgnettes." ' A paper called Ndcessaire, for 1759, refers to this means of satisfying pardonable curiosity without wounding modesty. A small opera- or spy- glass was set in the chief sticks of the fan, either at the top of the panache, probably the earliest form, or at the rivet. In the former case the whole of the blades were perforated, the fan when opened showing a series of circular perforations round its upper border. The advantage of such an arrangement will be obvious ; a fair reveller might see without being seen, and the tell-tale blush be hid. For more distant objects the opera-glass was called into requisition, the fan used either open or closed. ' Pour cacher la pudeur d'usage Contre un beau front le papier sert Et les brins forment un passage Par 011 l'oeil voyage a couvert.' 1 The material was either ivory, horn, or occasionally, in the case of the semicircular folding-fans, gauze, decorated with spangles or embroidered work. The brisds were made to the semicircular shape, and also to that of the full circle or cockade. In the latter instance the long handle was provided with circular loops, by which the fan might be held in the same manner as a pair of scissors. The blades assume various shapes, as that of Love's arrow, the bat's wing, an umbrella, a snake, a violin, and, when made of horn, were usually decorated with ' piqueV 1 Menagiana. 1 73 HISTORY OF THE FAN A curious and uncommon lorgnette-fan of the period of Louis xiv., in the possession of Madame Jubinal, is entirely of ivory ' d^coupe" a jour,' with appliques in gelatine imitating mica, forming a transparency through which roguish eyes may see and at the same time be protected as with a curtain. A semicircular lorgnette-fan, of fine design, is seen in the hands of Madame Devaucay, in the portrait by Ingres, collection of M. Frdide'ric Reiset, painted 1806. These interesting fans remained in vogue during the first quarter of the nineteenth century and later. The last stage of the fan during this foolish, frivolous, fascinating eighteenth century was that of a gradual dwindling into nothingness. Madame de Genlis, in her Dictionary of Etiquette (1818), remarks: ' When women were timid and blushed, they were accustomed to carry large fans to hide their blushes, serving at once as screen and veil : now that they blush no longer, and are intimidated by nothing, they do not choose to hide their faces, and therefore carry but microscopic fans {dventails im- perceptibles).'1 Blondel states that 'this small degree of fashion continued under the First Empire, when fans, still very small, were for the most part brisds or garnished with taffalas ; a few, however, were embellished with steel pearls, like the jewels of Petit Dunkerque.' We have seen how, during the period of the balloon petticoat, the fan, like the frog in the fable, anxious to outdo his big neighbour the ox, swelled — and swelled — and swelled. The consequences were less disastrous in the case of the fan, which is nothing if not consistent. The small imps of the fan tribe carried by those truly miraculous creatures the Merveilleuses, whose costume was reduced to such exceedingly scanty proportions that 1 Pope had, nearly a century earlier, made allusion to the discontinuance of the fashion : ' The modest fan was lifted up no more, And virgins smiled at what they blushed before.' 174 s a 5-1 '^ '- v 3 S 4 s K i 4> PAINTED FANS (FRENCH) a Frenchman even was moved to inquire if nudity would not have been a gain to modesty, were in perfect keeping with the tout ensemble. The fan lessened its proportions, grew more and more imperceptible as the rest of the costume grew scantier, until, as in the example in the collection of Mr. L. C. R. Messel, the blades measured but two and a half inches! JAPANESE LADY'S COURT FAN, WrTH STREAMERS. (Ethnological Museum, Berlin.) 175 CHAPTER VIII PAINTED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. ENGLISH, DUTCH, FLEMISH, AND GERMAN. THE history of the folded fan in England may, broadly speaking, be said to date from the establish- ment of the East India Company in 1600 ; this event marking the commencement of that Oriental trade which assumed such vast proportions during the succeeding century. Isolated examples of the pleated fan had, however, found their way into this country earlier, these either brought by individual traders from the East, or imported from the Con- tinent of Europe. We have already referred to the remarkable instance of the pleated fan appearing on the great seal of England, forming the crest of Cceur de Lion ; a conclusive proof that this form of fan was at any rate known, if not in occasional use, in this country during the Middle Ages. The plumed fan, nevertheless, held its own for a considerable period, although it is extremely unlikely that it was much in vogue before the reign of Henry vin., when we are informed that 'even young gentlemen carried fans of feathers in their hands, which in wars our ancestors wore on their heads.'1 Shakespeare refers to 'those remnants of fool and feather 1 Steevens. I76 I LONG-HANDLED FEATHER-FAN (Used in the Marie Stuart dance,) 1 4 h i i L ^ ^ i? ■> i »3£ ^ a Sv-8 ^ ^ PAINTED FANS (ENGLISH) that they have got from France.' So, also, Stephen Gosson, Pleasant Quips for upstart Gentlewomen, 1596 : ' Were fannes and flappes of feathers fond To flit away the flisking flies, As tail of mare that hangs on ground When heat of Summer doth arise, The wit of women we might praise For finding out so great an ease. ' But, seeing they are still in hand, In house, in field, in church, in street, In summer, winter, water, land, In cold, in heate, in dry, in weet, I judge they are for wives such tooles As babies are for playes for fooles.' The author of Quips for an upstart Courtier, 1620, drawing a com- parison between the degeneracy of his time and the purer manners of an earlier period, says : ' Then our young courtiers strove to exceed one another in vertue and in bravery ; they rode not with fannes to ward their faces from the wind.' In Hall's Satires, 1598, describing the dandies of his day: ' Tir'd with pinn'd cuffs, and fans, and partlet stryps.' In the play of Lingua, or The Combat of the Tongue and the Five Senses for Superiority, 161 7, the following directions are given for the character of Phantastes at the head of the second scene of Act 11. ' A swart complexion'd fellow, but quicke-ey'd, in a white Satten doublet of one fashion, green Velvet hose of another ; a phantasticall hat with a plume of fethers of severall colours, a little short Taffata cloake, a paire of Buskins cut, drawne out with sundry coloured Ribands with Scarfes hung about him after all fashions, and of all colours. Rings, Jewels, a Fanne, and in every place odde complements.' In the woodcut headings to the Roxburghe Ballads (c. 1635), both feather- and folding-fans are shown ; the frequent illustration of these instruments testifying to the popularity of the fan at this epoch. The z 177 HISTORY OF THE FAN first appearance of the modern fan, says Fairholt, may be seen in a print of the early part of the seventeenth century. The long handle is still retained, and the fan, although arranged in folds, does not appear to be capable of being folded. The fans here referred to are those seen in the prints by Vecellio and earlier engravers, small in size, referred to and illustrated in a previous chapter.1 It is not until the last decade of the sixteenth century that the folded fan appears in painted portraits, one of the earliest being that of Queen Elizabeth at Jesus College (1590), in which the Queen holds a decoupe" fan of the character of that illustrated from Cluny, facing page 109, having similar pointed edging. The edges of these fans were occasionally varied to a semi- circular form, a curiously interesting example appearing in a portrait of Elizabeth, Lady Wentworth, by Lucas de Heere, in which the leaf, probably of vellum or parchment, is elaborately decoupe ; the edges resembling a cheese-cutter in shape, the blades, apparently of ivory, numbering seven. The patterning often rivalled the finest lace, of which it was obvi- ously an imitation, lace also being used for fan mounts at this period, usually costly Flanders or Valenciennes. In the series of prints by Hollar of the Four Seasons, 1641, the veiled lady representing 'Summer' holds in her right hand an opened lace fan, the quaint legend at the foot of the plate running as follows : ' In Sumer when wee walke to take the ayre, Wee thus are vayl'd to keep our faces faire, And lest our beautie should be soiled with sweate Wee with our ayrie fannes depell the heate.' The marriage of Charles 11. with Catherine of Braganza in 1662 is another landmark in the history of the fan in this country. The Queen 1 See Italian fans, p. 109. 178 A L ondon. Fan. Shop, c. /74S. jW "L. CR~Aiessel. TlLe stLrren-de.r afjVlaltcL. /W ffu-n-oeijcrrc/ Pollen.. PAINTED FANS (ENGLISH) and her Portuguese ladies introduced the gigantic green shading fans of Moorish origin, which, in the absence of parasols (then unknown in England), served also to shield the complexions of the ladies from the sun, when they did not wish wholly to obscure their charms by putting on their masks. The Indian trade, however, opened up by Catherine's marriage treaty, soon supplied the ladies of England with fans better adapted, by their lightness and elegance, to be used as weapons of coquetry at balls and plays.1 Large numbers of fan mounts were also imported from Italy, both at this period and later. These are referred to incidentally in one of Steele's letters to the Tatler, April 23, 1709. ' I am just come from visiting Sappho [probably Mrs. Elizabeth Haywood, who had been some time on the Irish stage]. As I came into the room she cries, " Oh, Mr. Bickerstaff, I am utterly undone ; I have broken that pretty Italian fan I showed you when you were here last, wherein were so admirably drawn our first parents in Paradise asleep in each other's arms." ' 2 The fan of Pope's epigram was, it will be remembered, painted with the story of Cephalus and Procris, the motto ' Aura Veni.' 'Come gentle air! th' Eolian shepherd said While Procris panted in the secret shade ; Come gentle air! the fairer Delia cries, While at her feet her swain expiring lies. Lo, the glad gales o'er all her beauties stray, Breathe on her lips, and in her bosom play! In Delia's hand this toy is fatal found, Nor could that fabled dart more surely wound ; Both gifts destructive to the givers prove ; Alike both lovers fall by those they love.' 1 Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England. In most of the early engraved portraits of Catherine of Braganza, the Queen is represented with a folding-fan, in each instance closed ; in one instance, that of an equestrian portrait, a large fan is depicted. 2 In Campbell's London Tradesman, 1747, it is recorded that 'the Italian mounts are much more in request than anything of our own manufacture, and large prices are given for them.' 179 HISTORY OF THE FAN Two fine examples of early fans with subjects from classic mythology appeared at the Walker sale ; the first having a skin mount painted with the Triumph of Amphitrite, in which the daughter of Nereus is seated in a shell drawn by dolphins, with attendant nymphs and tritons, a figure of Cupid, blindfolded, hovering above; this in allusion to Neptune having sent the Dolphin to intercede for him, and to bring his innamorata from the foot of Mount Atlas. The stick is rosewood, inlaid with rays of mother-of-pearl. The second, from the collection of the Duchesse de Nemours, representing the marriage of Neptune and Amphitrite, the sub- ject covering the whole field of a deep mount ; the stick, mother-of-pearl, carved with a pastoral scene and smaller panels of warriors. Among the earliest English fans existing in private collections is a mount of the time of Charles i., the original stick of which is said to have been of gold, jewelled. The painting, a copy of the 'Triumph of Bacchus,' by A. Carracci, is attributed (probably erroneously) to Peter Oliver. The fan was given by the Princess Anne (afterwards Queen) to her god- daughter, Sarah Robinson, daughter of Sir John Robinson, Master of the Tower, and widow of the eldest son of Sir Humphrey Gore, on her marriage, in 1696, with John Harvey, Esq., of Ickwellbury, Beds. It is an example of a large class of fan mounts produced at this period, which were reproductions of the works of the greater Italian masters, many of which were, doubtless, copied by Italian artists, and either exported to England, or acquired in Italy by visitors to that country. Two interesting marriage fans of the period of Charles 11., both painted by the same hand, appeared at the Walker sale in 1882; the one, 'An Ancient Marriage,' with the bridegroom presenting ring, the bride wearing a floral chaplet and attended by maidens with distaff and flowers ; the stick of ivory, carved with emblematic figures, mother-of-pearl inlay, and silver pique\ The subject of the other (Achilles and Deidamia) referring to the taking of Troy ; on the reverse a view of the park at St. Cloud ; the stick, 180 fiieJ .-, f,(, v^^U*. Stl*. m-urrniye ^ tkl-T> a~f>k«l.. f77C Frmtk-, Wy at£ Co til' Vd.AM.li PAINTED FANS (ENGLISH) mother-of-pearl, carved with subjects emblematic of marriage. These, doubtless, were made by the French fan-makers who had become domiciled in England, and probably, as Mr. Robert Walker suggests, for important court personages. It was upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685, that the French Huguenots being obliged, through the persecution of their com- patriots, to quit their own country, sought refuge in England as well as other countries, where they were received with open arms. Amongst these were a number of dventaillistes, who established an industry, having brought with them, not only the money they had been able to save, but what was still more valuable, their skill as workers, their habitual diligence and thrift. ' The countries whither they went were enriched by the arts and trades which the French refugees introduced, and still more by the examples of industry, probity, and sincere piety which they exhibited in their own persons.'1 In 1709, upon the 'humble petition of the Ffanmakers that exercise the Art and Mistery of Ffanmaking in London and Westminster and Twenty Miles round,' a Charter of incorporation was granted by Queen Anne, providing that 'all Ffanmakers within the prescribed area, and all persons who have served, or shall hereafter serve, as Apprentices to the said Art and Mistery by the space of seven years, and who hereafter, from time to time, shall be Admitted into, or made free of the Society, shall be one Body Corporate and Politick in Deed and in Name, with a common seal, with power to hold lands, and power to sue and defend the same. Power to make bye-laws touching the good estate, Rule, and Government of the Society, and for the Reformation of such abuses and deceits as shall be found to be committed by them either in uttering or making bad and deceitfull works, as also in their several Offices, functions, Misteries, and business touching the said Trade,' etc. 1 H. M. Baird, The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. l8l HISTORY OF THE FAN During the latter half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries the importation of fans into this country from India, China, and the East was considerable, and, together with the Italian importation, already alluded to, threatened to ruin the home industry. The fanmakers addressed themselves to Parliament, and demanded its prohi- bition, with the result that a tax of forty shillings a dozen was imposed upon all wooden- and feather-fans, and for a time the importation of all painted fans was prohibited. In 1750 there appear to have been disputes between the Fanmakers' Company and journeymen fanmakers on account of non- payment of quarterage. Two interesting items of information appear in the Gentleman s Magazine for October and December 1870 as follows : — ' On the 28th ult. was try'd a cause between the Company of Fanmakers, incorporated by Charter for the Cities of London, Westminster, and twenty miles round, plaintiffs, and one Wagstaffe, defendant, for quarterage due to them, who was ordered to pay it with costs.' ' On the 28th ult. was a tryal in the Court of Requests, Westminster, between the Company of Fanmakers, plaintiffs, and some fan-painters, defendants, for non-payment of quarterage, which was determined for the defendants, it appearing that they were not legal members of the said Company.' The two following items will serve to show the extent of the fan industry in the middle of the eighteenth century, and the adverse conditions under which it laboured. 'A writer in the Westminster Journal for February 23, 1751 (quoted by the Gentleman s Magazine for the same year), proposes a tax upon plain and printed fan mounts. Painted ones not coloured to pass free as before. A sixpenny stamp to be affixed in the midst of a plain or printed paper fan mount, and a shilling stamp on a leather one. This may produce a revenue of ten, twenty, or thirty thousand pounds per annum, encourage a very ingenious branch of business, and only hurt about half-a-dozen paultry plate printers, who are enriching themselves and starving of hundreds.' 182 3 ■5 i s i '3 i? "•5 PAINTED FANS (ENGLISH) The Gentleman's Magazine for November 1752 quotes an advertise- ment which appeared in the Daily Advertiser, ' from the poor unfortunate artificers in the several branches of the fan trade, whose number is nearly 1000; returning thanks to the Company of Fanmakers for petitioning the E. India directors to discontinue the importation of fans. To excite the regard and compassion of the ladies, it asserts that the home-made fans are in every way preferable to foreign ; and that by discouraging the latter, they will relieve a number of unfortunate families from the most grievous distress and despair.' l 'On the 7th February' {Gentleman's Magazine, March 1753), 'the journeymen fanmakers presented the Princess Dowager of Wales with a beautiful and elegant fan, far superior to Indian fans, which was most graciously received.' This, doubtless, with the idea of obtaining patronage and support for the home-made article. The imported fans were for the most part sold by tea-merchants and dealers in Oriental wares. A trade card in the Schreiber collection, British Museum, with an elaborate engraved portrait of Queen Anne, states that John Roberts at the Queen's Head in Holborn, near Hatton Garden, London, sells all sorts of Fine China Ware ; the finest Hyson and Congo Teas, Fine Double Flint Drinking Glasses, etc., and India Fans. The fan makers also often combined the trade of fanmaking with the sale of millinery and stationery. The Banks collection of Shop Bills includes the following trade card : — ' Robert Pickeard, at the Swan and Golden Fan in Cheapside, near the Conduit, London. ' Mounteth and Maketh all sorts of Fans, and Selleth Silk Gauze and Silver Handkerchiefs, Caps, Girdles, Ribbons, Roles, Wiers, Ferrits, Silver 1 The Fanmakers' Company, created by Charter in 1709, for nearly 100 years protected and regulated the trade, until the reduction of protective duties on foreign fans annihilated the English trade. (Notes by Colonel Sewell (Fanmakers' Company), Schreiber MS., British Museum.) 183 HISTORY OF THE FAN Lace for Shoes, white Buttons for Shirts, Silk and Ferrit Laces, Masks and Necklaces. ' N.B. — Any Merchant may be furnished with all kinds of Milenary Wares at Cheap Rates.' Also we find Honour Chassereau, Fan Maker and Stationer, Fan and Crown, Long Acre, London, ' selling all sorts of Stationery Wares, Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation.' The principal enactments for the regulation of the import trade in fans and materials of the fan are here enumerated : — By the nth Geo. i. cap. 7, calpins for fans are rated in the Custom House books at 7s. 6d. a dozen, and the duty paid on importation is. 5d. and |ths a dozen. If made of leather, and the leather be the most valuable part, for every 20s. of real value upon oath, the duty is 6s. By the 12th Charles 11. cap. 4, fans for women or children, of French make, are rated in the Custom House books at £2 per dozen, and the duty £1, 5s. per dozen. But if these fans are painted, they are prohibited to be imported, and are seizable as painted wares. The laws regulating the importation of embroidery are still more stringent. By the Acts Richard m. cap. 10, 3rd Edward iv. cap. 3, 19th Henry vn. cap. 21, 5th Elizabeth, cap. 7, 13th and 14th Charles n. cap. 13, 4th and 5th William and Mary, cap. 10, 9th and 10th William in. cap. 9, nth and 1 2th William in. cap. 11, embroidery imported is forfeited, the importer liable to ^100, and the seller to .£50. The various materials, as gold and silver thread, or wire, lace fringe, work made of copper, brass, or any other inferior metal, imported, to be forfeited and burnt, and ^"ioo paid by the importer of every parcel so imported. This under 4th Edward m., 10th Anne, cap. 26, 15th George 11. cap. 20, and 22nd George n. By the 6th Anne, cap. 19, silks wrought or mixed with gold, silver, 184 Jycrry E7nf>t- t-r-e- 7;im- Za^A- A^rtLJ^/yi. SpQJVaL£cLI^3M^,yvi£toB<lZTUixl-miti^a.turij. E/nyicsh,. MT->rranl W.GU, PAINTED FANS (ENGLISH) or other materials, clandestinely imported, are forfeited, with ^"200 for every importer, and ^100 by the receiver, seller, or concealer. It therefore appears that either mounts, or fans that are painted, are seizable ; and that all fans or mounts embellished with gold or silver are prohibited under very severe penalties, particularly under 4th Edward in., and 15th and 22nd George 11. Further, paper fan-mounts could not be imported without paying a duty of 55 per cent. ; the duty on plain fans being 27^ per cent., or, if imported as toys, 37 per cent. In a table of fees taken by packers and water-side porters for shipping and landing the goods or merchandise of strangers, second charter of Charles 11., 1660, 'For a load of fans, one shilling.' The vogue of fans became general during the first half of the eighteenth century, when fan-painting was a most lucrative profession. The sculptor Nollekens tells us that when his wife was a girl, her father's intimate friend Goupy (a well-known water-colour draughtsman who died in London in 1763) was considered the most eminent of the fan-painters, and that fan-painting was then so fashionable that the family of 'Athenian Stuart ' (so called on account of his exquisite studies of Athens) placed him as a pupil to Goupy, conceiving that by so doing they had made his fortune ; and we learn from other sources that Stuart originally gained his livelihood by painting fans. A fan-mount in the Schreiber collection is painted with three medallions of Roman views, The Arch of Constantine, The Arch of Titus, and The Forum, the field of the fan decorated with delicate classical grotesques and border, signed 'Jose Goupy, 1738, N.A.' The views are skilfully drawn in pen line with wash, in the style of the water-colour draughtsmen of this period, i.e. a low-toned scheme of colour, a good deal of india ink being used. This signed example is of the greatest value in determining the character of Goupy's work, and it is extremely probable that he was responsible for a good many mounts generally considered as Italian. It was 2 A 185 HISTORY OF THE FAN from Goupy, too, that Stuart originally derived his interest in classic archi- tectural remains, and, doubtless also, much of his skill in depicting them. Fans had, indeed, at this period become an indispensable adjunct to a lady's toilet, a temporary loss of this instrument, upon occasion, causing much perturbation of spirit. An amusing story of such a cata- strophe is told in The Gentleman s Magazine for April 1736: ' What whims, what trifles, light as air, Govern the passions of the fair, And their dear, thoughtless bosoms tear ! Madame had come to grace the ball with her charming presence, her powdered admirers crowding about her, while, Some dance, some sip their tea, Some chat the pleasing hours away, And all is innocently gay, when, all on a sudden, Her Ladyship confounds the company by appearing in furious mood, with a voice like thunder, every one demanding the matter. Then the charming Celia, moralising, said : ' " What pity 'tis (in great affairs When prudence tempers all her cares) This lady should our mirth destroy, A vixen, for so meer a toy ! Oh ! how I blush to hear and see A nymph (who, all the world agree, Has acted well three parts in life, The maid, the widow, and the wife), Once mistress of so firm a mind, Who wisely, decently resign'd, Without a tear, her good old man, Roar like Othello — for a fan. Strange! that this engine, wont to prove The surest instrument of love, Should give to its illustrious dame, While others freeze, so fierce a flame ! " 186 We^aifia foTl, ^ith BLaji^Laj-Jj LalLon ,/7S4.freTLCh SA'sH~.,vUt, S^Pete-TJ a.n.J tkt^ Vatican, Tttrme ,jmla ily by ^/. Croppy. jD- JLics^v Adjun. . PAINTED FANS (ENGLISH) The fan-shops of Fleet Street, the Strand, and Westminster are con- tinually referred to in the advertisements which appeared from time to time in the Craftsman. The two following note a change of ownership : — ' Feb. 6, 1741-2. ' To be sold, at Gordon's Fan warehouse, The Crown and Fan in Tavistock Street, Covent Garden. All sorts of Fans. Wholesale and Retail, very cheap. The Person leaving off trade.' ' Feb. 12 1742-3. ' Gordon's Fan Warehouse, in Tavistock Street, Covent Garden. Mr. Gordon having left off Trade, the Business, as usual, is carry'd on by his late journey-woman, Mary Hitchcock, At the same Place, where Ladies may be accommodated with all sorts of Fans, at the most reasonable Rates.' From the extremely naive and interesting ' fan-shop ' fan belonging to Mr. Messel we are able to gather some idea of what these shops were like. The inscription on the shop sign is ' Fanmaker, London,' showing that the district represented was within the London boundary of this period, c 1745- During the comparatively brief reign of Queen Anne fans were again made large. Sir Roger de Coverley, upon his courting the perverse widow, declared that he would have allowed her the ' profits of a windmill for her fans.'1 With the proverbial fickleness of fashion, however, this vogue lasted but a short time ; the fan lessened its proportions in the second and third decades of the century, when, during the forties, its size once again increased, following the lead of France. ' Ventosus,' writing in the London Magazine for 1744, quotes, with some amusing comments, an epigram by Dr. Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, originally written upon a white fan borrowed from Miss Osborne, afterwards his wife, and referred to by Steele in the Tatler for October 19, 1710: 1 Spectator, No. 296. 187 HISTORY OF THE FAN ' Flavia, the least and lightest toy Can with relentless art employ : This Fan, in meaner hands, would prove An engine of small force in love ; Yet she, with graceful air and mien, Not to be told, or sagely seen, Directs its wanton motions so, That it wounds more than Cupid's bow ; Gives coolness to the matchless dame, To ev'ry other breast a flame.' ' The whole turn of this,' exclaims our commentator, ' depends upon the smallness and slightness of the Instrument — the least and lightest toy? Fans now in vogue are both monstrously large and monstrously strong. To say that a fan of eight or nine inches long, which, when extended in a semi-circle could not admit a string of more than fourteen or fifteen, wounds more than Cupid's Bow, is somewhat extraordinary, but to ascribe the same excellence to one of our modern ventilators, whose Diagonal line, when it is full spread, is longer than one of the Bowstrings of our Hoxton Archers, is ascribing nothing miraculous to it from the fair Hand that may happen to use it.' Our good Ventosus had witnessed an increase from ' 3 Quarters of a Foot ' to ' even 2 Foot within this week past ' ; he looks forward to a still greater improvement when the fan would extend to the same distance as the fashionable Hoop. This would introduce ' somewhat of uniformity in a Lady's Dress, and the age would be agreeably engaged at either meeting or following a fair Toast, with both her sails spread, in observing the harmony between the Curve at Top and the Curve at Bottom', etc. Our ingenious friend discovers other uses for such an instrument — ' a lady might mount it horizontally, to skreen herself and Family against all the Inclemencies of the weather.' Again, at the Playhouse, a good-natured lady may 'have it in her power to oblige a whole Side Box by a single Puff, and prevent the 188 -< M 3 Si I? *1 PAINTED FANS (ENGLISH) Beaux, as well as the Belles, from fainting away at an extraordinary Pathos.' The possibilities of such an instrument have, apparently, no limit — ' a Blast or two from this machine would be sufficient to whiff away to a convenient Distance all troublesome and worthless Danglers, who may attempt to besiege its fortunate possessor.' Nay, besides private benefits, one of a national nature occurs to the mind of our imaginative friend — ' 20,000 such fans, properly drawn up on the Shore, might blow back the next French invasion, or at least keep off the Enemies' Fleet till our own had Time to come up.' Our author might indeed, with strict adherence to truth, have included the beaux as well as the belles in this fanciful defence, with a proportionate increase in the probability of victory. Amongst the effects referred to in the inventory of a beau, who was carried off dead upon the taking away of his snuff-box, and remained unburied, his goods being taken into execution to defray the charge of his funeral — ' The strong-box of the deceased, wherein were found five billet-doux, a Bath shilling, a crooked sixpence, a silk garter, a lock of hair, and three broken fans! ! In the postscript to Addison's letter on the subject of his ' Fan Academy ' — ' I teach young gentlemen the whole art of gallanting a fan. N.B. I have reserved little plain fans, made for this use, to avoid expense.' 2 At the dancing assemblies in London, Bath, and elsewhere, it was customary for the gentlemen to select their partners by the ballot of fans, which were placed in a hat, the owner of the fan drawn becoming the partner of the gentleman who drew it. Mrs. Montagu, in one of her letters, refers to this custom. ' In the afternoon I went to Lord Oxford's ball at Marylebone. It was very agreeable ; and the partners were chosen 1 Tatler, December 29, 1709. Letter No. 113. John Hughes. 2 Spectator, No. 102. 189 HISTORY OF THE FAN by their fans, but with a little supcrcherie! A lady's fan was almost as well known as her face, and it was not difficult, with a little contrivance, to know which to draw. The same lady, writing from Bath in January 1740, says: 'Last night I took to the more youthful diversion of dancing, and am nothing but a fan (which my partner tore) the worse for it ; our beaux here may make a rent in a woman's fan, but they will never make a hole in her heart.' ' The popularity of the union of the 'Orange Tree with the English Rose ' is abundantly testified by the number of painted fans issued of this subject. A painted bridal-fan of the Princess Anne, daughter of George 11., married to the Prince of Orange in 1733, appeared at the Walker sale in 1882, and sold for £2.6. In this the Princess is seated, attended by the Loves and Graces. The preliminaries of peace between Austria and France in 1748 provide a subject for a fan appearing at this same sale. The scene represents a tented field. Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, joins hands with la France, the rival banners inscribed — ' Vive Louis xv., and Vive la Reine d'Hungrie'; the English banner of St. George in front; at the back the victory of Admiral Hawke. This probably executed for an English partisan on the occasion of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. A characteristic fan in the Wyatt collection, of the early part of the century, has a paper mount painted with merry-making scenes, persons dancing, drinking, musicians, etc.; the ivory stick carved a jour, painted with birds and flowers ; the guards, mother-of-pearl, carved and painted. Mr. George Augustus Sala, in his entertaining preface to the fan exhibition held at Drapers' Hall in 1878, refers to a remarkably curious fan exhibited some twenty years earlier, at a congress of the Archaeological Institute held at Worcester. This, evidently an English production, is a gouache on vellum, representing either the Great Lottery of 17 14, or 1 E. J. Climenson, Elizabeth Montagu, Queen of the Blue-stockings. 190 1 4 A t 3 4 PAINTED FANS (ENGLISH) the equally remarkable gambling enterprise of 1718, when the popular greed of gain was stimulated to such an extraordinary degree that a million and a half sterling was subscribed. The scene is the interior of Mercer's Hall, Ironmonger Lane, Cheapside, where transactions connected with lotteries took place, showing the platform with side galleries conveniently arranged for a crowd of gay gallants and fashionable dames in the full costume of the period ; the lottery tickets are in the course of being drawn by Blue-coat boys, a wheel on either side for blanks and prizes. The design, says our author, is identified with a contemporary engraving by H. Parr, ' Les divertissements de la Loterie,' designed by T. Marchant, drawn by Gravelot, and published by Ryland. Gravelot was a French engraver and decorative painter, invited to this country by Claude Dubosc to assist in illustrating a sumptuous history of the campaigns of Marlborough. Of topographical fans, that owned by Miss Moss, giving a view of Kensington Square as it appeared in the latter half of the seventeenth century, is amongst the most interesting : it is extremely fresh in colour, and exhibits a quaint sense of decorative treatment. A fan with a view of Cavendish Square is attributed to Canaletto, who in the latter part of his life visited London, where he was held in great estimation. The subject is enclosed within a cartouche, with flowers, etc., in the Chinese taste covering the rest of the field. The stick is of ivory, carved a jour, with figures, birds, and foliated ornament ; the edges, when closed, form