‘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 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.[118]
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 découpé 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 semicircular 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 découpé; 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 obviously 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.’
