‘Spain, who for thirty years had tried to organise her industry, has only arrived at the production of the commoner classes of fans. Italy, who uses fans greatly, does not make them; Portugal being only the third in the European market.’ The British record is correspondingly poor. ‘In the Great Exhibition of 1851,’ says Lady Bristol, ‘there was not one single fan of British manufacture exhibited,’[168] and so far as painted fans are concerned, the statement made by Redgrave in his notes to the Catalogue of the Fan Exhibition at South Kensington in 1870, ‘that there were no English fanmakers living except those who made cheap and coarse fans, is substantially correct to-day.’[169] [Illustration: Empire Fan, Ivory brisé, 10” x 5-7/8”. Mr Leopold de Rothschild. C.V.O.] [Illustration: Portuguese Fan, painted view, lacquered stick, c.1800. Mr J.H. Etherington Smith.] The evidence of the fans themselves bears out these statements. The instance may be cited of an engraved fan in the Schreiber collection (No. 69, Mounted Fans) recording Mr. Albert Smith’s ascent of Mont Blanc in 1851, bearing the imprint of the French firm, ‘Leroux et Cie., Fan’s Manufactr., 41 rue Notre Dame de Nazereth, Paris.’ This obviously produced exclusively for the British market. From Germany comes similar evidence of French pre-eminence; the wedding fan of the Grand Duchess of Baden, exhibited at Karlsruhe in 1891, is signed by a French artist, ‘A. Soldé, 1855,’ who produced a number of fans, and is made by a well-known French maker, Frédéric Meyer of Paris. This is painted with the subject of a sacrifice at the Altar of Hymen, and portrait busts of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, the initials F. and L., together with ‘Coblentz, 30 Sept. 1855,’ and is a typical fan of the mid-nineteenth century. Of the work of Soldé, a most excellent example, Le Bal d’Amours, is given, graciously lent by H.R.H. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll. The leaf is signed on both obverse and reverse, ‘A. Soldé,’ and inscribed, ‘Grand Bal donné sous le patronage de Madame.’ The mother-of-pearl stick finely pierced and carved. This formed part of the famous collection of Queen Victoria. In 1859 an event occurred of the most fateful interest for the fan, M. Alphonse Baude of Sainte-Geneviève (Oise) having invented his system of cutting and carving the sticks _à jour_ by machinery! Let us understand clearly what this means to us. Nature, ever bounteous, provides us gratis, without any patent dues, with an instrument—the human hand—the most exquisitely delicate and complicated machine known to us; this instrument is directed by a force—the human mind—still more subtle, if possible, in the delicacy of its operations. In place of this, M. Alphonse Baude, in his wisdom, offers us his conglomeration of wheels, axles, metal bolts, and screws! The intelligent fan-lover will therefore note this date, and carefully examine any fan sticks made subsequent to it.