A type of fan, apparently peculiar to Germany, common during the eighteenth century, has painted subjects cut out and laid on lace or net, a kind of painting appliqué, the effect extremely good. An example decorated with pastoral groups was exhibited at South Kensington by H.R.H. Madame la Comtesse de Paris; the stick ivory, carved à jour, with figures laid on gold-foil; the foliage, etc., coloured. This was bought in Dresden about 1860. A fan similar in character, the date about 1765, was exhibited at Karlsruhe in 1890.
‘If the fans of the eighteenth century,’ says Mr. H. F. Holt,[130] ‘yielded in grace and elegance to those of the sixteenth, they certainly (upon occasion) exceeded them in richness and magnificence, the materials used being often costly Flanders lace, the handles splendidly ornamented and inlaid with jewels. As the climax, however, of costly magnificence,’ continues this writer, ‘I will conclude with a description of the fan of the Duchess of York, who, shortly after her arrival in England, displayed a pleated fan entirely of diamonds, with an ivory stick pierced and set with diamonds in a mosaic pattern; the outside ones were set with a single row of diamonds, whilst very large brilliants fastened the fan at the bottom.’
The eighteenth century was indeed, par excellence, the era of the fan, which was to be seen in the hands of every woman, from princess to peasant.
CHAPTER IX
ENGRAVED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. PART I
THE practice of engraving fans, begun tentatively in Italy by Agostino Carracci in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and in France by Callot somewhat later, did not become general until the close of the century that followed, although two names—those of Abraham Bosse and Nicholas Loire—stand out prominently during this interval.
The engraving of Carracci referred to in an early chapter of this work, and illustrated opposite, must be regarded as merely a design for a fan, serving no other purpose apparently, in its engraved form, than as a record of a type of fan now practically obsolete, and of which no examples in their complete or original state remain to us.