History of the Fan

by G. Woolliscroft Rhead

Disraeli (Contarini Fleming), in similar strain, with no less eloquence, says: ‘A Spanish lady with her fan might shame the tactics of a troop of horse. Now she unfolds it with the slow pomp and conscious elegance of the bird of Juno; now she flutters it with all the languor of a listless beauty, now with all the liveliness of a vivacious one. Now in the midst of a very tornado she closes it with a whirr, which makes you start. Magical instrument! in this land it speaks a particular language, and gallantry requires no other mode to express its most subtle conceits, or its most unreasonable demands, than this delicate machine.’

‘Women,’ says the witty Spectator, ‘are armed with Fans as men with Swords—and sometimes do more execution with them.... There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use of in the flutter of a Fan. There is the angry Flutter, the modest Flutter, the timorous Flutter, the confused Flutter, the merry Flutter, and the amorous Flutter. Not to be tedious, there is scarce any emotion in the mind which does not produce a suitable agitation in the Fan; insomuch that if I only see the Fan of a disciplined Lady I know very well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes. I have seen a Fan so very angry, that it would have been dangerous for the absent lover who provoked it to have come within the wind of it: and at other times so very languishing, that I have been glad for the Lady’s sake the lover was at a sufficient distance from it. I need not add that a Fan is either a Prude or Coquette according to the nature of the person who bears it.’

Mr. George Meredith, too, would appear to have studied its motions: ‘Lady Denewdney’s fan took to beating time meditatively. Two or three times she kept it elevated, and in vain: the flow of their interchanging speech was uninterrupted. At last my father bowed to her from a distance. She signalled: his eyelids pleaded short sight, awakening to the apprehension of a pleasant fact; the fan tapped, and he halted his march, leaning scarce perceptibly in her direction. The fan showed distress.’[2]

In one of the sprightliest of Steele’s letters to the Tatler, the beauteous Delamira, upon the eve of her marriage, resigns her fan, having no further occasion for it. She is entreated by the matchless Virgulta, who had begun to despair of ever entering the matrimonial state, to confide to her the secret of her success. ‘That swimming air of your body,’ says she; ‘that jaunty bearing of your Head over your shoulder; and that inexpressible Beauty in your manner of playing your Fan, must be lower’d into a more confined Behaviour; to show, That you would rather shun than receive Addresses for the future. Therefore, dear Delamira, give me these excellencies you leave off, and acquaint me with your Manner of Charming.’...

Delamira explained that all she had above the rest of her Sex and contemporary Beauties was wholly owing to a Fan (left to her by her Mother, and had been long in the Family), which, whoever had in Possession, and used with Skill, should command the hearts of all her Beholders; ‘and since,’ said she, smiling, ‘I have no more to do with extending my Conquests or Triumphs, I’ll make you a present of this inestimable Rarity.’ ‘You see, Madam,’ continued she, upon Virgulta’s inquiry as to the Management of that utensil, ‘Cupid is the principal Figure painted on it; and the skill in playing this Fan is, in your several Motions of it to let him appear as little as possible: for honourable Lovers fly all Endeavours to ensnare ’em; and your Cupid must hide his Bow and Arrow, or he’ll never be sure of his Game. You may observe that in all publick Assemblies, the sexes seem to separate themselves, and draw up to attack each other with Eye-shot; That is the time when the Fan, which is all the Armour of Woman, is of most use in her Defence; for our

minds are constructed by the waving of that little Instrument, and our thoughts appear in Composure or Agitation according to the Motion of it. You may observe when Will Peregrine comes into the side Box, Miss Gatty flutters her Fan as a Fly does its Wings round a Candle; while her elder Sister, who is as much in Love with him as she is, is as grave as a Vestal at his Entrance, and the consequence is accordingly. He watches half the Play for a Glance from her Sister, while Gatty is overlooked and neglected. I wish you heartily as much Success in the Management of it as I have had;.... Take it, good Girl, and use it without Mercy; for the Reign of Beauty never lasted full Three Years, but it ended in Marriage, or Condemnation to Virginity.’[3]

If the fan is efficacious as a weapon of offence in Love’s sieges, it is no less effective as a shield against Love’s darts. On a painted Spanish fan in the Schreiber Collection in the British Museum are represented three fair nymphs in a wooded landscape, one of whom is receiving on her fan an arrow discharged by the Love-God, who is accompanied by my lady Venus in her car. On a scroll is the inscription, ‘l’utilité des éventails,’ ‘la utilidad de los abanicos.’

This use of the fan as shield, is adopted also by the shinláung, or monastic novitiate of Burma, who employs his large palm-fan, both as a shelter from the fierceness of the sun’s rays, and as a screen from the sight of womankind, moving, in the latter instance, his fan from right to left as occasion requires, i.e. whenever a woman happens to pass.