LONG-HANDLED FEATHER-FAN
(Used in the Marie Stuart dance.)
The history of the folded fan in England may, broadly speaking, be said to date from the establishment 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 Continent 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 Cœur 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.
| Telemachus & Calypso, English, 1780. silk mount, spangled, stick ivory, finely carved with medallions in imitation of Wedgwood’s Jasper ware. | The Dowager Marchioness of Bristol. |
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 VIII., when we are informed that ‘even young gentlemen carried fans of feathers in their hands, which in wars our ancestors wore on their heads.’[117] Shakespeare refers to ‘those remnants of fool and feather 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.