By the 11th Geo. I. cap. 7, calpins for fans are rated in the Custom House books at 7s. 6d. a dozen, and the duty paid on importation 1s. 5d. and 7/8ths a dozen. If made of leather, and the leather be the most valuable part, for every 20s. of real value upon oath, the duty is 6s. By the 12th Charles II. cap. 4, fans for women or children, of French make, are rated in the Custom House books at £2 per dozen, and the duty £1, 5s. per dozen. _But if these fans are painted, they are prohibited to be imported, and are seizable as painted wares._ The laws regulating the importation of embroidery are still more stringent. By the Acts Richard III. cap. 10, 3rd Edward IV. cap. 3, 19th Henry VII. cap. 21, 5th Elizabeth, cap. 7, 13th and 14th Charles II. cap. 13, 4th and 5th William and Mary, cap. 10, 9th and 10th William III. cap. 9, 11th and 12th William III. cap. 11, embroidery imported is forfeited, the importer liable to £100, and the seller to £50. The various materials, as gold and silver thread, or wire, lace fringe, work made of copper, brass, or any other inferior metal, imported, _to be forfeited and burnt_, and £100 paid by the importer of every parcel so imported. This under 4th Edward III., 10th Anne, cap. 26, 15th George II. cap. 20, and 22nd George II. [Illustration: Ivory Empire Fan. Lady Northcliffe.] [Illustration: Spangled Fan, with painted miniatures. English. Mrs Frank W. Gibson.] By the 6th Anne, cap. 19, silks wrought or mixed with gold, silver, or other materials, clandestinely imported, are forfeited, with £200 for every importer, and £100 by the receiver, seller, or concealer. It therefore appears that either mounts, or fans that are painted, are seizable; and that all fans or mounts embellished with gold or silver are prohibited under very severe penalties, particularly under 4th Edward III., and 15th and 22nd George II. Further, paper fan-mounts could not be imported without paying a duty of 55 per cent.; the duty on plain fans being 27-1/2 per cent., or, if imported as toys, 37 per cent. In a table of fees taken by packers and water-side porters for shipping and landing the goods or merchandise of strangers, second charter of Charles II., 1660, ‘For a load of fans, one shilling.’ The vogue of fans became general during the first half of the eighteenth century, when fan-painting was a most lucrative profession. The sculptor Nollekens tells us that when his wife was a girl, her father’s intimate friend Goupy (a well-known water-colour draughtsman who died in London in 1763) was considered the most eminent of the fan-painters, and that fan-painting was then so fashionable that the family of ‘Athenian Stuart’ (so called on account of his exquisite studies of Athens) placed him as a pupil to Goupy, conceiving that by so doing they had made his fortune; and we learn from other sources that Stuart originally gained his livelihood by painting fans.