Nay, besides private benefits, one of a national nature occurs to the mind of our imaginative friend—‘20,000 such fans, properly drawn up on the Shore, might blow back the next French invasion, or at least keep off the Enemies’ Fleet till our own had Time to come up.’
Our author might indeed, with strict adherence to truth, have included the beaux as well as the belles in this fanciful defence, with a proportionate increase in the probability of victory. Amongst the effects referred to in the inventory of a beau, who was carried off dead upon the taking away of his snuff-box, and remained unburied, his goods being taken into execution to defray the charge of his funeral—‘The strong-box of the deceased, wherein were found five billet-doux, a Bath shilling, a crooked sixpence, a silk garter, a lock of hair, and three broken fans.’[124]
In the postscript to Addison’s letter on the subject of his ‘Fan Academy’—‘I teach young gentlemen the whole art of gallanting a fan. N.B. I have reserved little plain fans, made for this use, to avoid expense.’[125]
At the dancing assemblies in London, Bath, and elsewhere, it was customary for the gentlemen to select their partners by the ballot of fans, which were placed in a hat, the owner of the fan drawn becoming the partner of the gentleman who drew it. Mrs. Montagu, in one of her letters, refers to this custom. ‘In the afternoon I went to Lord Oxford’s ball at Marylebone. It was very agreeable; and the partners were chosen by their fans, but with a little supercherie.’ A lady’s fan was almost as well known as her face, and it was not difficult, with a little contrivance, to know which to draw. The same lady, writing from Bath in January 1740, says: ‘Last night I took to the more youthful diversion of dancing, and am nothing but a fan (which my partner tore) the worse for it; our beaux here may make a rent in a woman’s fan, but they will never make a hole in her heart.’[126]
The popularity of the union of the ‘Orange Tree with the English Rose’ is abundantly testified by the number of painted fans issued of this subject. A painted bridal-fan of the Princess Anne, daughter of George II., married to the Prince of Orange in 1733, appeared at the Walker sale in 1882, and sold for £26. In this the Princess is seated, attended by the Loves and Graces.
The preliminaries of peace between Austria and France in 1748 provide a subject for a fan appearing at this same sale. The scene represents a tented field. Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, joins hands with la France, the rival banners inscribed—‘Vive Louis XV., and Vive la Reine d’Hungrie’; the English banner of St. George in front; at the back the victory of Admiral Hawke. This probably executed for an English partisan on the occasion of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.
A characteristic fan in the Wyatt collection, of the early part of the century, has a paper mount painted with merry-making scenes, persons dancing, drinking, musicians, etc.; the ivory stick carved à jour, painted with birds and flowers; the guards, mother-of-pearl, carved and painted.
| Early Dutch Fan mount. A settlement in the East Indies. | The Dowager Marchioness of Bristol. |
Mr. George Augustus Sala, in his entertaining preface to the fan exhibition held at Drapers’ Hall in 1878, refers to a remarkably curious fan exhibited some twenty years earlier, at a congress of the Archæological Institute held at Worcester. This, evidently an English production, is a gouache on vellum, representing either the Great Lottery of 1714, or the equally remarkable gambling enterprise of 1718, when the popular greed of gain was stimulated to such an extraordinary degree that a million and a half sterling was subscribed.