History of the FanRhead, G. Woolliscroft (George Woolliscroft)
History
History of the Fan
Rhead, G. Woolliscroft (George Woolliscroft)
Fans
‘A swart complexion’d fellow, but quicke-ey’d, in a white Satten
doublet of one fashion, green Velvet hose of another; a phantasticall
hat with a plume of fethers of severall colours, a little short
Taffata cloake, a paire of Buskins cut, drawne out with sundry
coloured Ribands with Scarfes hung about him after all fashions, and
of all colours. Rings, Jewels, a _Fanne_, and in every place odde
complements.’
In the woodcut headings to the _Roxburghe Ballads_ (_c._ 1635), both
feather- and folding-fans are shown; the frequent illustration of these
instruments testifying to the popularity of the fan at this epoch.
The first appearance of the modern fan, says Fairholt, may be seen in
a print of the early part of the seventeenth century. The long handle
is still retained, and the fan, although arranged in folds, does not
appear to be capable of being folded. The fans here referred to are
those seen in the prints by Vecellio and earlier engravers, small in
size, referred to and illustrated in a previous chapter.[118]
It is not until the last decade of the sixteenth century that the
folded fan appears in painted portraits, one of the earliest being that
of Queen Elizabeth at Jesus College (1590), in which the Queen holds
a découpé fan of the character of that illustrated from Cluny, facing
page 109, having similar pointed edging.
The edges of these fans were occasionally varied to a semicircular
form, a curiously interesting example appearing in a portrait of
Elizabeth, Lady Wentworth, by Lucas de Heere, in which the leaf,
probably of vellum or parchment, is elaborately découpé; the edges
resembling a cheese-cutter in shape, the blades, apparently of ivory,
numbering seven.
The patterning often rivalled the finest lace, of which it was
obviously an imitation, lace also being used for fan mounts at this
period, usually costly Flanders or Valenciennes. In the series
of prints by Hollar of the Four Seasons, 1641, the veiled lady
representing ‘Summer’ holds in her right hand an opened lace fan, the
quaint legend at the foot of the plate running as follows:
‘In Sumer when wee walke to take the ayre,
Wee thus are vayl’d to keep our faces faire,
And lest our beautie should be soiled with sweate
Wee with our ayrie fannes depell the heate.’
[Illustration: A London Fan Shop, c.1745. Mr L.C.R. Messel]
[Illustration: The surrender of Malta. Mrs Hungerford Pollen.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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