Mrs. Abington, a celebrated actress, was considered an adept at flirting a fan; and being possessed of the highest refinement of taste in dress, her judgment and opinion were often solicited by ladies of rank.
“Pray, ladies, copy Abington;
Observe the breeding in her air;—
There’s nothing of the actress there.
Assume the fashion, if you can,
And catch the graces of her fan.”
In the Westminster Journal of February 23rd, 1751, a writer proposed a tax on fan mounts, which, he considered, would produce a revenue of £30,000 per annum.
In the following year an advertisement appeared in the Daily Advertiser from employés in the fan trade, thanking the Company of Fanmakers for their efforts to abolish the importation of fans, and their endeavours, by asserting the superiority of home-made fans over those of foreign manufacture, to gain the patronage of the ladies, and the consequent relief of the distressed members of the trade, who, through the extensive imports of foreign-made fans, were prevented from obtaining employment.
In the year 1753 the journeyman fanmakers presented the Dowager Princess of Wales with an elegant fan, which they represented to be far superior to Indian fans. In the same year a correspondent of Sylvanus Urban published complaints of snuff-taking by both sexes at church; the ladies also giving grave offence by the use of the fan mounts which he saw displayed by a row of ladies while kneeling at the Communion Table. Among the subjects were:—“Meeting of Isaac and Rebekah,” “Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife,” “Darby and Joan,” “Vauxhall Gardens,” “The Judgment of Paris,” “Harlequin, Pierrot, and Columbine,” “The Prodigal Son,” scenes from the “Rake’s Progress,” etc.
During the latter part of the last and the beginning of the present century, fans seem to have ceased to be a necessary accompaniment to a lady’s toilet, although they are still to be seen at balls and theatres, and of some utility, perhaps, judging from a print in which a lady and gentleman are represented sitting by each other, the gentleman “fluttering the fan,”—