Madame Bisschop, who also has a dainty touch, executed a number of fans during the sixties and seventies, including the silver-wedding fan of Mr. and Lady Charlotte Schreiber. This skin mount, now in the Schreiber collection, British Museum, though it can scarcely lay claim to the highest qualities, is, nevertheless, charming in idea and pretty in colour; it represents a sylvan scene on the borders of a lake upon which are two white swans, a delicate allusion to the bride and bridegroom. In the centre, underneath a tree, is a Cupid turning over the pages of a large book, inscribed ‘April 10, 1880, XXV.’ The subject is enclosed within a cartouche of gold and flowers.
Once again, the Royal Fan, in its hour of need, finds a friend in royalty, on this occasion the most powerful monarch in Europe, Queen Victoria. In 1870, the period of perhaps the lowest ebb of the fan’s fortunes in this country, at the initiative of this royal lady, an exhibition was organised at the South Kensington Museum (now Victoria and Albert), when a prize of £400 was offered by Her Majesty, and four hundred and thirteen examples from the finest collections both here and abroad were shown.
The great success of this exhibition, and the absorbing interest displayed in it, naturally led to the organisation of others. Among the measures adopted by the Worshipful Company of Fanmakers for the purpose of reviving what was at one time ‘a flourishing industry in this ancient city,’ a competitive exhibition of fans was held at Drapers’ Hall in 1878, again under the protecting ægis of royalty (H.R.H. Princess Louise, now Duchess of Argyll). Twelve hundred and eighty-four fans, ancient and modern, were exhibited; gold, silver, and bronze medals, and money prizes amounting in the aggregate to £172 were awarded, the freedom of the Company being in most instances granted to the prizewinners.
Eleven years later (1889) this experiment was repeated. In addition to prizes offered by the Fanmakers’ Company, others were offered by private individuals and public newspapers, and one hundred and six works were entered for competition.
| Fan mount by Claudius Popelin. | Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris. |
The Queen newspaper, the donor of one of the prizes, commenting on the exhibition, held at Drapers’ Hall during the month of May, said: ‘Considered as a whole, the exhibition did not come up to our expectations. The liberal prizes offered ought to have brought forward finer and more original work in a branch of minor art which is to be considered as the special province of lady artists,[170] and presents so many opportunities for fanciful composition and refined taste in arranging and grouping,’ etc.
In the following year, 1890, the Fanmakers’ Company decided to hold their third competitive exhibition.
The Daily Graphic of May 17 said: ‘The exhibition of fans organised last year by the Company of Fanmakers gave so valuable an impetus to English trade in this direction, that the Company very wisely and patriotically decided to hold another this season.’