History of the Fan

by G. Woolliscroft Rhead

WE now gather together the various threads of our subject at the point where they were left, viz. the close of the Empire. We have found that during two centuries and a half—from 1600 to 1800, with a little overlapping at either end—the fan passed through the various stages of development and decline; that during the latter years of the sixteenth century both Italy and France, but especially the former, produced objects which may be legitimately described as fine art; that in France, if we make allowance for, and accept a different standard of taste and fashion, the most exquisitely dainty things were produced, the period of Louis XV. being that of the highest development of the art, with a steady decline from thence onwards.

During the first three decades of the nineteenth century the fan languished. The storm and upheaval of the Revolution, the general unrest caused by the Napoleonic wars, were among the chief contributing causes, together with the fact that the great families had fled from France, taking their fans with them. For the first fifteen years of the century, there is little to record except a difference of proportion. ‘Towards 1800,’ to quote M. Rondot, ‘the brins were only 6 or 7 centimetres to the gorge; towards 1813 this was increased to 8 centimetres, and to 19 centimetres in 1841.’

Wedding Fan, the gift of Queen Victoria, silk leaf.

H.R.H. Princess Henry of Battenberg.

‘When the brisés returned into favour in 1804,’ continues this author, ‘the fan-makers employed leather, silver, copper, asses’ skin, and cardboard. The blades were short, and were made by the cutters who ornamented them; this was also the case with the fans of horn which were fashionable towards 1829-30.’

Three examples are given of the earlier years of the century: the first, from the collection of Miss Moss, formerly belonged to Miss Charlotte Yonge the authoress, and is worked upon a foundation of net, with cut and pierced steel decorations. The painted subject in the centre represents a lady seated in a garden, and a boy with hoop and dog; the stick of pierced ivory piqué with silver. An Italian example almost identical with this, with the exception of the painted subject, appears in the Museo Civico, Venice.

The fan of asses’ skin, from the same collection, is cut to a perforated pattern, painted in the centre with a subject of birds and flowers, the outside blades of ivory, the whole piqué with silver. These peau d’âne fans were used by élégantes at balls, as tablets upon which the names of partners for the dance were inscribed by means of a leaden or silver pencil. The colour is a light slaty-grey; their size averaged from 9 to 10 inches.

The fan which, by the courtesy of Mr. Leopold de Rothschild, we are enabled to illustrate, is elaborately cut to fine perforations, and painted with a large medallion in the centre representing a music lesson, a number of smaller miniatures on the blades, with gilding.

In 1827 the fan was the provocative cause of the conquest of Algeria by the French. A blow on the head of the French consul from the plumed fan of Hussein Dey resulted in an apology being demanded and refused, with the consequent declaration of war.

‘In the course of the year 1828,’ says M. Uzanne, ‘at the time of representations of a comic opera entitled Corisandre, as the heat was suffocating, the youthful dandies fainting languidly in their boxes, it occurred to a Paris manufacturer to sell green paper fans to the men, and the whole theatre was therefore furnished with them. Fashion adopted this innovation of masculine fans, which received the name of Corisandres, but this originality endured but a short time in Paris, as also in Venice and the principal cities in Italy, where men became familiar with the play of the fan;—the beaux abdicated the sceptre of the woman, and resumed as before their Malacca canes.’