| ‘Sans Gene’ Fan, leaf green silk with figure of
an opera dancer, stick ivory, applied leather on guards. Empire Fan, leaf red silk with band of net & ornament in gold, silver & spangles, stick ivory, tinted crimson. | Mr L. C. R. Messel. |
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 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 Fête de l’Agriculture celebrated by the administration 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 Élysées.
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 agriculture to the imagination and the ancient fêtes 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;[114] 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 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 Société Française 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