In England the flabellum was in use even in remote parishes. In the churchwarden’s accounts at Walderswick, Suffolk, in 1493, is an entry of IVd. for ‘a bessume of pekoks fethers.’

Although the flabellum is very rarely represented in illuminated MSS., in the Book of Kells we find miniatures of angels waving these instruments; in the Gospel of Trèves (eighth century) is a conjoined evangelistic, symbolic figure holding a small flabellum in one hand and a eucharistic lance in the other. In a Hiberno-Saxon MS. of the eighth century a figure of St. Matthew is seen holding in his hand a flabellum. In the public library at Rouen are two representations of the use of this instrument; in the one, a thirteenth-century missal, formerly belonging to the abbey of Jumièges, the fan is held by the deacon in front of the altar at which the priest FROM A GREEK PSALTER.
(British Museum.) officiates; in the other, it is waved over the head of the priest as he elevates the wafer: this in a pontifical of the church of Rheims, thirteenth century.

A psalter in Greek, British Museum, additional MSS. 19,352, gives a miniature of an angel waving a large flabellum over the head of David who is asleep; another instance occurs in a thirteenth-century Service-Book in the Barberini Library, given by Paciandi.72

Representations in printed books are still more rare. In Barclay’s Ship of Fools of the World, 1509, we find, however, a woodcut illustration of a spectacled bibliophile wearing cap and bells, seated among his books, holding in his hand a flabellum of feathers, saying:

the word flabellis being here applied to the ordinary hand-brush or duster.

By the end of the sixteenth century the flabellum had fallen into complete disuse, its original purpose having been FROM GOAR long abandoned or forgotten, although as late as 1688 Randle Holmes, Academy of Armory, refers to ‘the flap or fann to drive away flies from the chalice.’ Its sole reminiscence in the west is in the large flabella of peacocks’ feathers carried at solemn festivals in procession before the Pope. In the Greek Church, the fan is still delivered to the deacon at ordination as the symbol of his sacred office.

From the period of the final break up of the Roman Empire to that of the Crusades the general use of the fan was discontinued in Europe, and was probably only adopted by highly placed personages; during these early periods, however, it was still the religious fly-flap or flabellum, d’émouchoir, and Blondel infers from the circumstance, of Étienne Boileau not referring to it in his Livre des Mestiers (1200), that even at this time it no longer served any domestic purpose except in very rare instances.

The earliest English reference to the fan appears to be the following:—

‘In the thirtieth year of King Edward I., precept was given to Nicholas

Pycot, Chamberlain, of the Guildhall of London that he should cause to be sold all pledges for any debt whatsoever then in his custody.

‘In an inventory of pledges sold for arrears on the King’s Tallage, 31 Edward I., 1303. One fan (value not stated) taken from Henry Gyleberd of the ward of Basseshawe for 2s. 8d., which he owes of arrears of the fifteenth.’74

The oldest existing Christian fan, and the most famous of the few fans of which we have any record during the Middle Ages, is that which has become identified with Theodolinda, Queen of the Lombards, the saintly princess, who possessed a nail of the holy cross which was ultimately used as a setting to the Iron Crown of the kings of Lombardy. This fan is preserved as a sacred relic in the Cathedral of Monza near Milan. Superstition has invested it with magical powers. Pilgrimages are made to Monza by village maidens, often from a long distance, on a certain day of the year, as the act of touching it is believed to facilitate and promote their marriage projects. It is of the cockade shape, formed of vellum, of the beautiful purple hue we find in contemporary manuscripts; it is decorated with an alternating diaper of Romanesque ornament in gold and silver, and round its outer border on either side is the following inscription in Latin hexameters, which is given by Mr. W. Burges, Archæological Journal, vol. xiv., on the one side:

and on the reverse, now much obliterated:

Mr. Burges has pointed out that the form of the letters of the inscription, which are Roman with slight Rustic variations, as also the purple dye, are sufficiently similar to contemporary manuscripts of St. Augustine of the end of the sixth century.

The case which accompanies the fan is constructed on the same principle as the handle of the Tournus flabellum, although less elongated. It is of wood, covered with silver, the wooden part probably modern, made to the original shape, with the old silver used again. The length of the case with handle is 15-1/2 inches, the diameter of the leaf 10 inches.

The side flap was originally fastened to the fan, and drawn round until it formed a complete circle, as in the instance of the Tournus flabellum.

With respect to the identity of the original owner of this fan, although the claim which has been made for its association with Queen Theodolinda cannot be substantiated, its identification with any well-defined personage is equally difficult. Who was Ulfeda? Mr. Burges states with reference to this name that it is by no means the most legible part of the inscription—that he has been able to discover no one so named who lived during this period.

M. de Linas points out that the name Ulféda is a variant of the Saxon Elpheid, which the marvellous cloisonné fibula, exhumed, as is said, from a Carlovingian sepulchre at Wittislingen (Bavaria), gives under the softened form of Ufeila.

This Monza fan is not mentioned in an inventory of the treasury in 1275; in that of 1353 the following, however, occurs:

‘Item, fabella, seu orata una argenti facta ad modum unius maze cum manica ligni ligata in argento.’

M. de Linas infers from the fact of the extremity of the handles being provided with a ring, that it was not a liturgic fan, and certainly this circumstance, together with the smallness of its size, would appear to be a sufficient evidence of its secular use; in any event, and whatever its original use, this fan, together with that of Tournus, must be accounted among the most precious relics preserved to us from that dim and dark, but extremely fascinating period.

The rigid flag-fan, which appears to have been in intermittent use in Europe from the early centuries of our era, consists of an oblong parallelogram with a handle fitted to one of its longer sides. These were made either of plaited straw of various colours, of linen painted and embroidered, of parchment or vellum, or of silk, woven or embroidered, often with lozenge-shaped diapering.

The earliest examples remaining to us are Coptic or Saracenic. M. Robert Forrer in his Reallexikon figures two which were obtained from the cemetery of Akhmîn, the Greek Panopolis, presumably belonging to the fourth-sixth century. Of these, one is finely plaited of brown, red, and black straw, with a representation of four hearts encircling a cross, the other of a reticulated diapered pattern with a border of linen. A similar flag-fan of plaited straw appears in the Berlin Museum: this example, also, is probably Coptic.

M. Charles de Linas, quoting from the life of St. Fulgentius, sixth century, affirms that the Bishop of Ruspa, whilst he was a monk and even an abbot, occupied his leisure hours in copying Holy Writ or in plaiting ‘fly-flaps’ of palm leaves. This same author75 figures a flag-fan from an engraved glass vase, exhumed from the catacombs, and now preserved in the library of the Vatican, representing the Virgin Mother seated with the infant Saviour on her lap, a deacon behind agitating a rectangular flabellum fixed in a lateral handle. The zigzag ornamentation indicates that this, also, was formed of plaited straw.

In the Observances of the Augustinian Priory at Barnwell, Cambridge, ‘The Fraterer ought to provide mats and rushes to strew the Frater and the alleys of the Cloister at the Frater door, and frequently to renew them; in summer to throw flowers, mint, and fennel into the air to make a sweet odour, and to provide fans.’ ‘Muscatoria in estate providere.’76

The most remarkable example, however, of this banner form is on a diptich of ivory offered by Charles the Bald to the abbey of Saint-Corneille de Compiègne, and at present in the Cabinet de Médailles at Paris. On the inferior compartment of the diptich is a eunuch (?) holding FROM AN IVORY DIPTICH.
(Cabinet de Médailles, Paris.) with both hands a flabellum apparently of metal, the handle long, thick at the end, and engraved with lines representing masonry; the top in the form of a turret, from which hangs a cord. The leaf, in all probability embroidered, has a plain broad border enclosing a laurel wreath.

The banner form of fan became fashionable with the Venetian women of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These were of two kinds: the one, of a more ornate character, was used by matrons; the other, abanico di novia, of a delicate whiteness, used only by engaged maidens or the newly married. An example of the latter occurs in the portrait of the painter’s daughter Lavinia, by Titian, in the Dresden Gallery, probably painted in 1555. Titian painted this favourite daughter some eighteen years later; in this portrait she carries a feather-fan, the sign of Venetian nobility, Titian having been, in the interval, created a Count Palatine by the Emperor Charles V.

Authentic examples of these flag-fans are exceedingly rare. A richly embroidered Venetian fan of the sixteenth century is in the collection of the Grand Duke Frederick of Baden; another, also Italian, has a large oval medallion with ornaments of silver and brown, and is in the collection of Mr. G. J. Rosenberg of Karlsruhe; a third, abanico di novia, of white vellum enriched with Venetian lace of the sixteenth century, is referred to by Blondel as being in the possession of Madame Achille Jubinal of Paris.

These fans were probably introduced into the western countries of Europe by the returning Crusaders. They never, apparently, obtained any great vogue except in Italy; they continued, however, in intermittent use until the close of the sixteenth century, when, together with feather, tuft, and cockade fans, they gradually gave place to the modern folding-fan which had by this time made its appearance in Portugal from the Far East.

From the fourteenth century onwards, the history of the fan becomes more clear, and Blondel quotes a number of French inventories in which the fan figures—that of the Comptesse Mahaut d’Artois (1316), an émouchoir with silver handle; of Queen Clémence (1328), an émouchoir of silk brocade; and also in the will or testament of Queen Johanne of Évreux (1372), a jewelled émouchoir costing five golden francs.77

The cockade form, à la cocarde, has been in use during all periods subsequent to its first introduction from the East in the early centuries of our era. We have already referred at some length to the cockade flabella at Tournus and Monza. In an inventory of Charles V. of France, 1380, we read of ‘un esmouchouer rond, qui se ploye, en yvoire, aux armes de France et de Navarre, à un manche d’ybenus.’78

During the fourteenth century, the long-handled flabellum was also in use, waved by attendants as at Thebes and Rome. In the inventory above quoted (Charles V.) occurs—‘Trois bannières, ou esmouchoers, de cuir ouvré, dont les deux ont les manches d’argent dorez.’ ‘Deux bannières de France, pour esmoucher le Roy quand il est à Table, semées de fleurs de lys brodées de perles.’79

The feather-fan, also, was in use during this reign, as we learn from a curious entry in a letter of the Queen—alluding to a criminal prosecution against some manufacturer of spurious coin—‘Le suppliant trouva d’aventure un esventour de plumes, duquel il esceuta le feu—où l’on faisoit la ditte fausse monnoye.’80

The feather and tuft fans in use from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries and later were formed of the plumes of the peacock, the ostrich, and the paroquet, dyed various colours: the number of the feathers varied from three to twenty or more, and were arranged so as to imbricate the plumes in the gradation of their natural growth. These were set in handles of carved ivory and the more precious metals, generally silver, and were often richly jewelled, and suspended from the girdle by a slender chain. Of their cost we have a hint in Marston’s satires:

Silver was probably the material of the handle of Mistress Bridget’s fan in the theft of which Falstaff and his Ancient were implicated.

References to the silver-handled fan occur commonly in old plays:

The above references are to fans of the ordinary sort; the cost of the more precious fans of history was considerable. Brantôme (c. 1590) refers to the fan of Queen Eleanor with its mirror all ornamented with precious stones of great value, and also to the new-year’s gift of Queen Margaret to Queen Louise of Lorraine—a jewelled fan of mother of pearl of such beauty and richness that it was valued at more than fifteen hundred crowns,81 a sum equal to a thousand pounds of our present money.

The employment of the fan as fire-screen is indicated by the new-year’s gift to Queen Mary of England in 1556, when she received ‘seven fannes to kepe the heate of the fyer, of strawe, the one of white silke.’

Queen Elizabeth’s partiality for fans is historic, and it is upon record that she regarded a fan as a suitable gift for a queen.

Leicester’s new-year’s gift in 1574 is recorded: ‘A fan of white feathers set in a handle of gold, garnished on one side with two very fair emeralds, and fully garnished with diamonds and rubies; the other side garnished with rubies and diamonds, and on each side a white bear [his cognisance] and two pearls hanging, a lion ramping with a white muzzled bear at his foot.’

Among the new-year’s gifts, 1588-9:—

‘By the Countess of Bath, a fanne of Swanne downe, with a maze of gilene Velvet, ymbrodered with seed pearles and a very small chayne of silver gilte, and in the middest a border on both sides of seed pearles, sparks of rubyes and emerods, and thereon a monster of gold, the head and breast mother of pearles.

‘By a Gentleman unknown, a fanne of sundry collored fethers, with a handle of aggets garnished with silver gilte.’

In 1589, ‘a fanne of ffethers, white and redd, the handle of golde, inameled with a halfe moone of mother of perles, within that a halfe moon garnished with sparks of dyamonds, and a fewe seede perles on th’ one side, having her majestie’s picture within it: and on the back-side a device with a crowe over it.’

‘Geven by Sir Frauncis Drake.’

In 1599:—

‘By Mrs. Wingfeilde, mother of the maydes, four ruffes of lawne and a fanne.’

From a letter of Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sydney, December 13, 1595, we learn that ‘upon Thursday she dined at Kew, my lord keeper’s (Sir John Packering) house (who lately obtained of her majestie his sute for £100 a yeare land in fee farm). His intertainment for that meale was great and exceeding costly. At her first lighting, she had a fine fanne, with a handle garnished with diamonds.’

It is also recorded that upon her visit to Hawsted Hall, the seat of Sir Thomas Cullum, she dropped a silver-handled fan into the moat.82

In the year 1600, a commission was issued to the Lord High Treasurer, the Lord Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Treasurer of Her Highness’s Chamber, to examine and take a perfect survey of all ‘robes, garments, and jewels,’ as well within the Court as at the Tower and Whitehall. In this, no less than twenty-seven fans appear. The following are enumerated:—

Item, one fanne of white feathers, with a handle of golde, havinge two snakes wyndinge aboute it, garnished with a ball of diamondes in the ende, and a crowne on each side within a paire of winges garnished with diamondes, lackinge 6 diamondes.

Item, one fanne of feather of divers colours, the handle of golde, with a bare and a ragged staffe on both sides, and a lookinge glass on thone side.

Item, one handle of golde enamelled, set with small rubies and emerodes, lackinge 9 stones, with a shipp under saile on thone side.

Item, one handle of christall, garnished with sylver guilte, with a worde within the handle.

Item, one handle of elitropia (q), garnished with golde, set with sparks of diamondes, rubies, and sixe small pearls, lackinge one diamonde.

The feather-fan appears in the following portraits of Queen Elizabeth, painted and engraved:—

Jesus College: white feather-fan with jewelled handle.

The Newcome picture, now in the National Portrait Gallery: part of a feather-fan, the portrait being three-quarter length.

Welbeck: a small feather-fan hanging from girdle.

The engraving by Johann Rutlinger: a large feather-fan, the handle of elaborate design set with jewels. Also pictures at Cobham; Woburn Abbey; Charlecote Park; Christ Church, Oxford; Penshurst; Powerscourt, and other places.

The folding-fan was not introduced into this country until the latter part of the queen’s reign; in the following pictures it appears:—

Jesus College, half length, 1590.

The Ditchley portrait, whole length, 1592; fan attached to the girdle and held in right hand.

Bodleian Library, portrait attributed to F. Zucharo.

To enumerate the different portraits, painted and engraved, in which the feather-fan appears, would be an impossible task; sufficient has been said to indicate the various forms these articles assumed. Reference may, however, be made to the feather-fan appearing in Renold Elstracke’s engraving of Anne of Denmark (queen of James I.); this consisting of three large ostrich plumes set in a jewelled handle. To the same engraver’s portrait of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James, a similar feather-fan. Also on a monumental brass, illustrated in Lipscomb’s Buckinghamshire, vol. iii. 291, the wife of John Pen, Esquire, 1641, appears with an ostrich feather-fan hung from her girdle. In a portrait attributed to Sebastian del Piombo at Frankfurt is an extremely ornate feather-fan with a silver handle.

We also obtain an excellent idea of the form these feather-fans assumed in Italy in the fifteenth century from the engraved design for a hand-screen by Agostino Carracci (illustrated facing p. 204). This consists of an admirably designed cartouche enclosing a subject of a satyr and nymphs bathing; above is a bust of Diana enclosed in a second cartouche, at the top of which is a head and wings of a Cupid; the whole is surmounted by a tuft of ostrich feathers. On the same plate are three other medallions, Neptune and Minerva, a head of Mars, and the Graces, these latter either intended as alternative subjects or for introduction at the back of the fan. The engraving is signed ‘Agust. Carazza Inv. e fe.’

The feather-fan was used by both sexes, as we learn from Bishop Hall, describing a fashionable gallant:

An ostrich-plume folded fan is given in a miniature of Mademoiselle D’Hautefort in the cabinet of M. de la Mésangère. This consists of ten sticks each with a single feather attached, dyed alternatively yellow and blue.

Feather-fans continued in general use until the time of Vandyck and later, and are in evidence in several portraits by this master; indeed the use of the tuft- and feather-fan has never been completely abandoned, the article having remained in intermittent use even to the present day.

None of these ancient feather-fans exist in their complete form, from the perishable nature of the ostrich plume, which, in the lapse of time, crumbles to fragments, and from this circumstance the remarkable feather hand-screen in the possession of Mr. Messel is of the highest interest.

A few handles, however, are to be found in the various collections, both public and private. A pretty ivory handle of a sixteenth-century Italian feather-fan is in the Salting collection, at present at South Kensington. This is delicately carved with two half-length female figures issuing from acanthus-leaved ornament, and holding a festoon of drapery, a mask of Cupid above. Near the handle end are two winged terminal monsters.

The head of an ivory-fan handle, also Italian of the same period, is in the South Kensington collection: this has a female terminal (head restored) and two dolphins forming the top, two masks on either side, with other terminals and cornucopiæ.

CHAPTER VI

PAINTED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES (ITALIAN AND SPANISH)

FAN OF FERRARA, OR ‘DUCK’S-FOOT’ THE establishment of the Portuguese as a conquering power in the far East dates from the first expedition of Vasco da Gama in 1497. Five years earlier, Christopher Columbus had sailed westward over the Atlantic, bearing a letter from his royal mistress to the great Khán of Tartary, seeking India and far Cathay, and finding instead—America.

The three expeditions of Vasco da Gama, during the first twenty years of the sixteenth century, together with the operations of Alfonso d’Albuquerque, resulted in the complete supremacy of Portugal as a trading power with the East. From Japan and the Spice Islands to the Red Sea and the Cape of Good Hope, they were the sole masters and dispensers of the treasures of the East,83 and during the whole of the sixteenth century enjoyed a complete monopoly of the Oriental trade. As early as 1502, the King of Portugal obtained from Pope Alexander VI. a bull constituting him ‘Lord of the Navigation, Conquests, and Trade of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India,’ but it was not until 1516 that the Portuguese made their appearance in China, where, ‘at Ningpo, they succeeded in establishing a colony, carrying on a gainful trade with other parts of China, as well as with Japan.’84 It was thus that the folding-fan found its way first to Portugal through its traders.

This introduction of the folding-fan into Europe marks the beginning of a new era of the fan’s history, as, although both Chinese and Japanese fans possess qualities which are absolutely individual and unique, yet it must be confessed that the fan, in the hands of European artists, its early Oriental influence notwithstanding, ultimately developed a character and style quite its own, and reflecting the artistic conditions of its epoch and surroundings.

There are, however, considerable grounds for supposing that some form of the folding-fan, as we now know it, existed in Europe at a period considerably anterior to the Portuguese expedition to the East. Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonné du Mobilier Français, makes a remarkable statement in connection with some thin metal fragments which were unearthed during some excavation at the Château de Pierre. These fragments, says this distinguished author, which are very characteristic of a fan constructed like those of our own times, should be anterior to the siege of 1422, as they were found in the carbonised débris belonging to that epoch. They are composed of an alloyed metal, cuivre et argent. The piece B represents one of the outside flats, and was fixed to a guard of wood or very thin metal, to which was glued the stuff, or vellum; the piece A one of the branch pieces or brins. M. Viollet-le-Duc infers from the fact of the pieces not being pierced at the handle end, but finished with a cross, that the branches were tied with a silken cord, which would also be attached to the waist belt; he points out the great antiquity of the flabellum (doubtless meaning the cockade form), and concludes by saying, ‘It is difficult to allow that the fan, which is merely a derivation of it (qui n’en est qu’un dérivé), was not in use until the sixteenth century, as several writers have contended.’

M. Viollet-le-Duc’s meaning as to the probable construction of this fan is not so clearly stated as might possibly be desired. We take it that these pieces were but the ornaments of a folding-fan formed of ivory, wood, or other material on the modern principle—that the large piece B formed the shoulder, to be completed by another piece forming the guard proper. However this may be, and whether these pieces really formed part of a folding-fan A     B or not, this author, in the concluding portion of his note, has expressed a truth which it is not possible to gainsay, viz. that the principle of the folding-fan already existed, in the form of the cockade, and that it is only necessary to divide the cockade in two parts, and to protect the ends with some firm substance, to arrive at the folded fan as we now know it. Indeed this was done—fans were carried towards the close of the sixteenth century which consisted of a segment of a cockade, inserted in a long handle similar to that of the plumed fan, thus uniting the characteristics of both plumed and folded fan. Vecellio, Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo, 1590, figures these small fans, of which two illustrations are given. We are thus presented with a decorative development which is gradual, reasonable, and complete, a development quite conceivably SMALL RIGID FANS. (From Vecellio.)independent of any importation from the East, and of itself bridging over the gap that otherwise would have existed between two apparently opposing types.

Any speculations as to how this fan of M. Viollet-le-Duc came to exist would therefore be idle; the type was no new one. We have already referred to the pleated fan crest, seen on the heads of horses in Phœnician and Persian monuments.85 A similar fan crest appears on the horse’s head in the

Brétigny seal of Edward III., engraved in consequence of the Treaty of Brétigny, 1360, by which this monarch renounced the title of King of France. This appeared again in the seal with the altered legend in which he resumed the title—the period of its use, 1372-77. This same seal with fan crest was used successively by Richard II., Henry IV. (first seal), and Henry VI. (silver seal), the legend only altered.

A still more remarkable example is the large displayed fan crest (the earliest authenticated instance of a regular crest),86 in the centre of which is a lion passant, on the top of the flat helmet of Cœur de Lion (second seal, 1197-99), used after his return from captivity, and quite possibly, therefore, borrowed from the East.

The fan-plume or panache appears also on the flat-topped helmet of Alexander III., King of Scots (second seal); the horse also bearing the fan-plume.

These fan crests are also seen on the seal of Richard Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel; of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, 1301; and of Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of Wales, 1305; and on the effigy of FEATHER-FAN.
(Milan.) Sir Geoffrey de Luttrel, c. 1340, showing a fan upon which the entire Luttrel arms are depicted. A large fan crest, having little tufts of feathers at each division of the fold, appears on the arms of the family of Schaler, Basle; another is to be found on the common seal of the City of London (dated 1539), charged with the cross of the city arms. ‘In course of time this fan, in the case of London, as in so many instances, has through ignorance been converted or developed into a wing, but the “rays” of the fan in this instance are preserved in the “rays” of the dragon’s wing (charged with a cross) which the crest is now supposed to be.’87

With respect to the origin of these fan crests, we must go back, says Mr. Fox-Davies, to the bed-rock of the peacock popinjay vanity ingrained in human nature; the same impulse which nowadays leads to the decoration of the helmets of the Life Guards with horse-hair plumes and regimental badges, the cocked-hats of field-marshals and other officers with wavy plumes.... The matter was just a combination of decoration and vanity.

Notwithstanding the foregoing instances, it is abundantly clear that the folding-fan, though it may have been in intermittent use during these early periods, obtained no great vogue in Europe until the sixteenth century, when it was in general use in Portugal, Spain, and Italy, and that the prevalence of the fashion was resultant upon the influx of Eastern manufactures.

The feather-fan, referred to in the last chapter, although regarded as the sign of nobility, was occasionally carried by the wives of the rich merchants of Venice. A noble Venetian matron carries a tuft fan with a mirror in the centre garnished with pearls; the plumed fan is seen in the hands of the noble demoiselles of Milan, of married Genoese ladies, of the noble matrons of Siena, the latter of whom, together with the ladies of Venice, Perugia, and other cities, also carried the flag-fan.

The smaller fan, with long thin handle, surmounted with five or seven feathers set symmetrically, is carried by the Parmese, Ferrarese, and Florentine ladies, and by the noble matrons of Genoa.

The Milanese ladies carried a fan made apparently of feathers, rigid, and bound round in five sections. The married ladies of Naples and Bologna carried rigid screens designed in the form of a cartouche of the strap-work so usual in sixteenth-century Renaissance ornament. The later hand-screens, seen in the engravings of Callot and others, were obviously a development of this form.

The above instances are cited from the engraved work of A. de Bruÿn,88 in which also appears a long-handled fan of seven feathers carried by a Turkish lady.

In an earlier work by the same engraver, Imperii ac Sacerdotii ornatus, 1579, a bishop holds in his left hand the feather fan, in his right a crozier.

In the art library, Victoria and Albert Museum, are several designs for feather-fans and handles, by an unknown artist, but certainly Italian, drawn vigorously with a pen and washed with bistre. In the same collection is a design in pencil for the panache of a folding-fan, in the Italian manner, displaying great knowledge of Renaissance design.

At the commencement of the seventeenth century, and indeed earlier, small screens were the fashion, painted either with love scenes, inscribed with suitable verses, or views of Italian towns, with a short description, and were sold for a sum equivalent to an English groat.

The English traveller, Thomas Coryat, in his Crudities (1608), writes: ‘These fans both men and women of the country [Italy] do carry to cool themselves withal in the time of heat, by the often fanning of their faces. Most of them are very elegant and pretty things, for whereas the fan consisteth of a painted piece of paper and a little wooden handle, the paper, which is fastened at the top, is on both sides most curiously adorned with excellent pictures.’ These, probably, are the fans referred to above as seen in Vecellio and the work of other engravers. Many were apparently rigid, and probably formed of ivory or similar hard substance; the size would be about six inches. They were by no means confined to Italy, but became the vogue in Spain, France, and other countries.

A long fan, carried by a noble Neapolitan lady, is given by Hefner-Altenek, in his work on costume. This is apparently rigid, since no sign of pleating is apparent in the representation, which is, however, small.

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.