It is not until the reign of Henry III., that we find the first authentic evidence of the use of l’éventail plissé; 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.’[100]

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.[101] ‘I could see in the other chambers,’ continues 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 découpé, or découpé 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 Actæon fan in the Musée 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 Actæon, 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 a chef-d’œuvre. Nevertheless, the sons of a master were exempt from the chef-d’œuvre 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.


Cut Vellum Fan with insertions of mica, painted with subjects of Actæon, &.c. ivory stick, French, end of XVI. century.		Photo by J. Leroy
Musée de Cluny.

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 (Journal du Citoyen), published at the Hague in 1754, we learn the prices usually obtained: Wooden fans (les éventails 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.