Par où l’œil voyage à couvert.’[115]
The material was either ivory, horn, or occasionally, in the case of the semicircular folding-fans, gauze, decorated with spangles or embroidered work.
The brisés 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 ‘piqué.’
A curious and uncommon lorgnette-fan of the period of Louis XIV., in the possession of Madame Jubinal, is entirely of ivory ‘découpé à jour,’ with appliqués 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 Devauçay, in the portrait by Ingres, collection of M. Frédéric 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 (éventails imperceptibles).’[116]
Blondel states that ‘this small degree of fashion continued under the First Empire, when fans, still very small, were for the most part brisés or garnished with taffalas; a few, however, were embellished with steel pearls, like the jewels of Petit Dunkerque.’