History of the Fan

by G. Woolliscroft Rhead

The colour is blue with decorations of gold, the figure taken from a picture in an album in the possession of this author, 1596-1611.

Doubtless one of the earliest forms of the folded fan in Italy was the so-called ‘duck’s foot,’ used by the ladies of Ferrara; the leaf, which opened to a quarter of a circle, was formed of alternate strips of vellum and mica, with delicately painted ornaments. The stick was of ivory and consisted of eight narrow blades. Blondel would seem to infer that this type of fan originated in France, and cites a contemporary portrait of ‘un personnage du Bal sous Henri III.’ A fan, evidently the ‘duck’s foot,’ with a pattern agreeing with the system of mica or other insertion, appears in an engraved portrait of Louise de Lorraine, queen of Henri III.

This form of fan is, however, probably Italian in its origin; it is figured by Vecellio, in the hands of a lady of Ferrara; it is also seen in the earlier engraved work of de Bruÿn, above referred to.

Legendary accounts of the woes of the unfortunate Torquato Tasso, who had dared to ‘lift his love’ to a princess of the house of Este, have afforded many themes for the imagination of subsequent writers from Byron and Goethe downwards. The story of the fan of Eleonora d’Este, which was of the form above described, surmounted with rubies, is a pretty one, and may be given for what it is worth.

On a day when reading to the princess his Gerusalemme, in which the episode of Olindo and Sofronia in the second canto was intended as portraying Tasso’s own situation with regard to her, his enraptured listener, won by the charm of the moment, was on the point of yielding, when, by a supreme effort, she recalled herself to her sense of duty, hesitated for a moment, grasped her fan, kissed it, flung it at the poet’s feet—and fled.

This association of vellum and mica appears to have been pretty general for the leaves of the folding-fans upon their first introduction in the middle of the sixteenth century. There were two different systems: in the one, the decoration consisted of painting on the plain surface of the mica or vellum, or both, as in the fan of Ferrara, or the Actæon fan, described on page 146; and in the other, the leaf is cut to such a degree of elaboration as almost to rival the finest lace, as in the charming fan in the Musée de Cluny, illustrated.

The system of mica insertion was developed until fans were made entirely of this material, with painted arabesque decoration similar in character to that of the Actæon fan at Cluny, illustrated page 146. An extremely interesting example is illustrated from the collection of Mr. L. C. R. Messel. In this, the stick is of plain ivory, perforated on the panaches, the blades numbering thirteen. The leaf is divided into three rows of twenty-five panels each, decorated with a medley of arabesques of children, animals, birds, and flowers, the panels separated by narrow borders in blue and black.

Of découpé fans, no finer example could be given than that from the Musée de Cluny, the stick of which is composed of ten blades of bone, the two outer ones extending the whole length of the leaf, the rest to a little less than half-way across. The leaf, which occupies exactly three-fourths of the whole length, is of paper cut to an extremely refined geometrical pattern of circles and lozenges, with small, and even minute pieces of mica inserted at intervals, imparting a richness and variety to the fan without destroying its lightness and elegance.

This type of fan appears constantly in the portraits, both painted and engraved, of the latter half of the sixteenth century. It reached England, apparently, about 1590, or a little earlier, and is seen in the portraits of Queen Elizabeth painted about this date.

This art of elaborate perforation (découpé) is essentially Italian in its origin, and was evidently practised to a considerable extent during the period we have been considering. In the fan which has become associated with Mademoiselle Desroches, the utmost degree of elaboration is attained, and this example may be accepted as a type of a number of fans produced during the seventeenth century and later.