Towards the end of the reign of Louis XV. the fan industry suffered a temporary relapse: the fashion for the cheaper printed fans, and also for the importations from the East, spread even to the aristocrats. We read of a fashionable jeweller at this period undertaking to supply to La Pompadour a dozen fans direct from Nankin for the insignificant sum of seventy-two livres. An interesting design for a fan in the Hennin collection (Bibliothèque Nationale) is probably intended as an effort to revive interest in the more expensive fans,[112] and is inscribed, ‘Combat du terrible torreau représenté par des enfants en présence de Sa Majesté Louis XV., roi de France et de Navarre.’ This was a spectacle devised for the king’s amusement in 1760. In an enclosure, a bull-fight, in which the actors are children, is taking place before a large concourse of spectators, including the king and queen; on the left are trumpeters and other figures, on the right is a figure holding three hounds in leash. La Pompadour is glorified on a skin mount in the collection of Mrs. Bruce Johnston; the subject being ‘hommages’ offered by Church, State, Literature, Art and Music at the altar of madame, who appears as Venus seated on a raised throne in the centre of the composition, her car and doves in the background. A Cupid strikes at her bosom with his arrow, others dance to the music of a mandoline, while another, crowned with a laurel wreath, rides on the back of the French Eagle. This was probably painted by one of the numerous artists employed by madame, and never mounted. (Illustrated facing p. 6.) The story of Rinaldo and Armida supplied the subject of many fans produced during the century. Handel’s opera _Rinaldo_ was first produced in London, February 24, 1711. It was staged in the most sumptuous manner, the gardens of Armida being filled with live birds, a piece of stage realism hardly to be surpassed even in these days: it had, however, little vogue on the Continent. Gluck’s _Armide_, which appeared in 1777, fared better, the composer being then in the height of his popularity, and, moreover, under the powerful protection of his former pupil, Marie-Antoinette, who, upon the success of _Orphée_, granted him a pension of six thousand francs, and a like sum for every fresh work he should produce on the French stage. The charming fan, here illustrated, by the gracious permission of H.R.H. the Princess of Wales, is anterior to the date of the production of Gluck’s opera, and is one of the best of the numerous versions of the subject. It was given by King William IV. to Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge, and left by her to her grand-daughter, Victoria Mary, Princess of Wales. (Frontispiece.) In Miss Moss’s fan, also illustrated, the stick is of ivory carved _à jour_, and painted with a cartouche in the centre, of Neptune, Venus, and Cupid.