The principal medallion figures the prospective bride and bridegroom nursing a figure of Love. On the extremely ornate mother-of-pearl stick, lavishly gilt in dead and burnished gold of two colours, the happy pair again appear clasping hands before the altar of Hymen, with an accompaniment of Cupids; on the two inferior cartouches are dancing figures with wreaths, spangling being applied here as on the leaf. The fan appeared at the recent exhibition of Fair Women at the Grafton Galleries, where it attracted much attention. On the occasion of the birth of the dauphin, (Louis XVII.) in 1785, eleven years after the marriage, the royal pair renew their vows at the altar of Hymen. This on a fan from the unfortunate queen’s collection, which, together with the last mentioned, appeared at the Walker sale in 1882; the mount skin, the stick mother-of-pearl, carved in open with portraits of the queen and the young dauphin. The fan (brisé) presented by the town of Dieppe to Marie-Antoinette, in celebration of the same event,[113] is declared by Balzac to be the handsomest of all historical fans. It is of ivory open work, carved by the famous worker Le Flamand, eulogised by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. The subject, from the design for Vien, premier peintre to Louis XVI., is an episode in the life of Alexander the Great. Porus, an Indian prince, on the eastern bank of the Hydaspes, refused to submit to Alexander, but, defeated and taken prisoner, he was brought into the presence of the conqueror. Asked how he expected to be treated, he boldly replied, ‘As a brave man and a king.’ Alexander, subdued by his foe’s firmness, restored to him his conquered territory. [Illustration: Photo by A. Girander. Fan stick, Ivory, carved with subject of the Assembly of Notables 1787, figures of Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette on panaches. Musée du Louvre.] When the queen was obliged to quit Versailles in 1789, she gave this fan to Madame du Cray, who was keeper of her Majesty’s laces. From Madame du Cray it passed into the possession of her daughter, Madame la Bruyère, who, at her death, bequeathed it to Monsieur de Thiac, by whom it was exhibited at South Kensington in 1870. The ivory stick—the mount has long since perished, if it ever possessed one—acquired by the Louvre, and formerly in the collection Revoil, in 1828, is said to have been once the property of Marie-Antoinette. The brins carved are with a subject of the king, with the two royal princes on his right hand, receiving a deputation of ministers, the whole enclosed within a florid and meandering cartouche, the background and diapers _à jour_. On the panaches appear figures of Louis and Marie-Antoinette, above their heads two genii bear the royal crown; on the gorge are medallions of Cupids, with tragic and comic masks.