The distinguished French engraver, Abraham Bosse (born 1602, died 1676), engraved three fans during the years 1637-38, much valued by collectors. The ornament of these, designed in a florid Renaissance style, consists of amorini, masks, festoons, etc., enclosing medallions of mythological subjects—the first being the birth of Adonis, Venus and Adonis, and the death of Adonis; the second—the Judgment of Paris, a Cupid drawing his bow, and a Cupid with a crown; the third—the four ages: of gold, silver, bronze, and iron.
No examples of these engravings appear in the British Museum collection. A print of the Judgment of Paris is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, but permission to reproduce it could not be obtained.
The title-page of Nicholas Loire’s work, Desseins de grands Éventails, appears in the Schreiber collection, together with six engravings from the work. This title-page, by far the most characteristic design of the series, takes the form of a folding-fan, full size. Its subject is an arabesque, composed of a droll with cap and bells playing a guitar, and two fantastic dancing figures on an ornamental festooned platform supported by the wings of female terminals; cornucopia, amorini, vases and flowers serve to complete the composition. It is inscribed: ‘Divers Desseins de grands Eventails, Ecrans, et autres Ornamens, Inventés et Gravés par Nicholas Loire, A Paris chez Jombert rüe Dauphin, No. 56,’ and signed ‘Loire fecit.’
The designs, which measure eight inches, are evidently intended to form the central subjects of fans, to be completed and coloured by hand. They include ‘The Judgment of Paris,’ enclosed in a cartouche with Cupids, fruit, etc.; an eastern goddess, seated under a canopy, the drapery of which is sustained by two serving-men; Isaac and Rebekah; The finding of Moses; Venus; and Europa.
| A Fête on the Arno. (Éventail de Callot.) | British Museum |
The topical fan, having reference to royal and distinguished personages, or recording public events, was entirely the product of the eighteenth century. It was, broadly speaking, born with the century, and died with it. During this period, the engraved fan became a purveyor of history, a kind of running commentary on the affairs of the hour. It was the fan of the people—the poor relation of the more aristocratic painted fan. ‘Ill drawn, roughly modelled, and often vilely bedaubed,’ says Henri Bouchot in his entertaining ‘History on Fans,’[132] ‘its genesis is not hard to determine; its fathers were Callot and Abraham Bosse, and its mothers the coquettes of the grand siècle.’ We shall, therefore, lightly, though perhaps somewhat too swiftly, traverse the fascinating period above indicated, with this sprightly annotator for guide, which finds amusement in ‘Malbrouk’ and his mock burial, follows Stanislaus into his enforced retirement in Alsace, alternately sympathises with and mocks at the woes of the unfortunate Louis and his family, with apparent careless nonchalance records the chief scenes of the reign of terror, celebrates the amazing triumphs, and witnesses the ultimate defeat of Napoleon.
Naval and military events, for reasons which will be sufficiently obvious, play a comparatively unimportant part in French fan decoration. ‘Malbrouk’ (Marlborough) is, however, lampooned in three scenes from the popular song of ‘Malbrouk,’ said to have been composed on the night after the battle of Malplaquet, September 11, 1709, and a plagiarism of a Huguenot song on the death of the Duc de Guise,[133] written by Théodore de Bèze and published by the Abbé de la Place in his collection of fragments, the first verse of which runs as follows:
‘Qui veut ouïr chanson? (bis)
C’est du Grand Duc de Guise;