History of the FanRhead, G. Woolliscroft (George Woolliscroft)
History
History of the Fan
Rhead, G. Woolliscroft (George Woolliscroft)
Fans
If any one himself would see,
Pray send the Gentleman to me:
For in my Magick Glass I show
The Pedant, Poet, Cit, or Beau;
Likewise a Statesman wisely dull,
Whose plodding Head’s with Treaties full.
Etc.
Made and sold by EDWARD VAUGHAN,
Fanmaker, at the Golden Fan near the Chapel in
Russel Court, Drury Lane.’
A necromantic fan was issued by Gamble; ‘Dear Doctor consult the
Stars,’ representing an old necromancer being consulted by ladies.
‘Gypsy’ fans are invariably arranged according to a regular principle.
A medallion in the centre, of a Gypsy telling fortunes, the different
cards, together with their significance, arranged in four rows over
the general field of the fan, and at the top, or on the reverse, the
explanation, or directions for telling fortunes. The ‘Gypsy Fan’
conforms to this rule so far as the medallion is concerned: in lieu,
however, of the cards with their explanation we have a series of floral
festoons, borders, etc., painted by hand. The fan ‘made by Clarke and
Co., at their Warehouse, the King’s Arms, near Charing Cross, Strand,
London. Inventors of the much esteemed sliding Pocket Fan.’[156]
The ‘Oracle’ has in the centre a wheel of fortune with two winged
children on clouds, one of whom holds a scroll inscribed ‘Oracle.’ On
the sides of the fan the names of the ten greater gods and goddesses,
in ten columns, the names disposed differently in each. On the lower
part of the fan the ‘Explication’ of the Oracle, and ‘examples’
together with the questions, as—‘Whether one is to get Riches; Whether
one will be successful in Love; What sort of a Husband shall I have’;
etc. etc. On the reverse are heads of the gods and goddesses with their
attributes, with ten columns of inscriptions, each containing ten
answers to questions.
Pub. accord. to Act, Jany. 1, 1800, by Ino. Cock, I. P. Crowder & Co.,
No. 21 Wood Street, Cheapside, London.
The ‘Wheel of Fortune, by which may be known most things that can be
required,’ presents us with a variation of the foregoing. The wheel
occupies the centre of the fan, with four female heads representing—1.
Bath Gypsy. 2. Norwood Gypsy. 3. Corsican Gypsy. 4. York Gypsy. On the
one side of the fan, ‘Phisiognomy,’ with directions how to read it;
on the other, ‘Perilous Days,’ with a prognostication of the date and
manner of death of Napoleon, viz., by suffocation or drowning, at the
latter end of 1810 or beginning of 1812. J. Fleetwood, Sc., 48 Fetter
Lane.
An interesting class of fans is that illustrating popular and
fashionable resorts, entertainments, etc., as Bartholomew Fair, Bath,
Ranelagh, Vauxhall Gardens, the Crescent at Buxton, etc.
Henry Morley, in his interesting _Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair_,
has given us an amusing description of the fan sold in that annual
saturnalia, where Henry Fielding once had an interest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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