The fashion lasted well into the nineteenth century, when an extensive manufacture was also carried on in India (Bengal) for exportation to Europe. This chiefly consisted of hand-screens of the pear-shaped gourd type, rush being the material employed.
OSTRICH FEATHER FOLDING-FAN
(From the portrait group by Van Loon at Amsterdam.)THE people of the Netherlands have been famous, from the Middle Ages onwards, for the splendour of their costumes. We have an account of Jane of Navarre, wife of Philippe le Bel, who, upon the occasion of a visit to Bruges in 1301, was so much struck by the pomp and magnificence displayed by the inhabitants, particularly the ladies, that she exclaimed, ‘What do I see! I thought I alone was Queen, but here I find them by whole hundreds.’
The fact that fans were largely used in the Low Countries during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is evidenced by the frequency of their appearance in painted and engraved representation. In the ‘Omnium pene Europæ, Asiæ, Aphricæ, atque Americæ Gentium habitus,’ engraved by A. de Bruÿn, and published at Antwerp in 1581, nine years anterior to the earliest edition of Vecellio, the long-handled plumed fan appears in the hands of a Belgian lady; the shorter-handled tuft-fan is also carried by noble ladies of England and France. In the works of the great Flemish painters, Vandyck and Rubens, the rigid feather-fan constantly occurs.
| An Offering to Ceres, stick ivory painted with a rustic scene. German or Dutch, 21” × 11”. From Queen Victoria’s collection. | H.R.H. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll. |
In the engraving by ‘J. Côyens et C. Mortier,’ of the family of Frederick and Elizabeth, King and Queen of Bohemia, the young Princess Louysa holds a dark ostrich feather-fan with a mirror in the centre.
In the large portrait group by Van Loon at Amsterdam, of the family of Jan Miense Molenaer, a lady holds a folding-fan of white ostrich feathers, the wavy ivory sticks numbering five; in the same picture another lady holds a small rigid feather-fan composed of the feathers of one of the smaller birds.
In the engraved work by de Bruÿn above referred to, the large folding-fan appears constantly, though not in the hands of the Netherlandish ladies; the fashion of the fan was, however, substantially the same in most countries of Europe. Painted mounts appeared early, and were also large; the extremely interesting mount in the possession of the Dowager-Marchioness of Bristol being probably one of the earliest existing Dutch examples. The subject evidently refers to one of the Dutch settlements in the East Indies, probably the town of Batavia, built by the Dutch in the early years of the seventeenth century. Here is represented a quay, where merchandise (mostly fruits and fish) is being landed from boats, and on which buying and selling is taking place. In the background are buildings of a European character, with a volcanic range of mountains in the distance. A high-masted vessel is moored in the bay, and is partially seen behind the buildings. In the immediate foreground are two cannon-balls mounted on low pedestals. The long veils and other details of costume are similar to those worn by the Dutch during the first half of the century, seen in contemporary engravings; the remarkable peaked, plaited straw-hats are practically identical with those made by the natives of the Malay Archipelago. The leaf, which has been removed from the stick and stretched upon a frame, is painted in gouache or paper, probably a little later.