History of the FanRhead, G. Woolliscroft (George Woolliscroft)
History
History of the Fan
Rhead, G. Woolliscroft (George Woolliscroft)
Fans
Klimsch of Frankfurt, the winner of one of the prizes, was represented
by ‘The Dance,’ a composition of figures in the style of Watteau, a
number of Cupids occupying the centre of the fan, which was priced
at the high figure of £500. Professor Hermann Götz, director of the
School of Arts and Crafts at Karlsruhe, showed an excellent classical
composition on paper, of the chariot of an orb or planet. Professor
Ferdinand Keller, of Karlsruhe, exhibited an apotheosis of the Emperor
William I., an excellent fan mount of a pretty Cupid on a cloud, with
a medallion portrait of the Empress and a large eagle. This in the
possession of Mr. J. G. Rosenberg, who also owns an extremely able
composition of a dance of bacchantes by Georg Papperitz.
There was also a powerful painting of the _plein air_ school, of a pier
with fishing-boats, ‘Bewegte See, Schwanenhaut,’ by Professor Gustav
Schönleber; and an excellent naturalistic painting on silk of parrots,
paroquets, etc., by Max Seliger of Berlin.
The above by no means exhausts the good things of this important
exhibition, in which was represented practically every phase of modern
art, and amply demonstrated the fact that the Germans, artists and
public alike, are much more alive to the importance of the fan, both as
affording an opportunity for artistic expression, and as an accessory
of costume, than we are in this country.
Upon occasion, the fan has led to unforeseen and undesired
consequences; a story is told of the eccentric King Ludwig of Bavaria,
the gallant and prodigal admirer of the dancer Lola Montés. At one
of the balls of his Court, a fair princess having inadvertently let
her fan fall to the ground, the monarch hastened to pick it up and to
restore it to the hands of the giddy beauty, when his forehead came in
sharp contact with that of another gentleman, no less desirous than
the king of paying homage to the fair. The shock was so great and so
violent that King Ludwig, stunned for the moment, soon afterwards
discovered growing on his forehead that enormous wen, so well known,
and as celebrated as it was unlucky.[171]
[Illustration: Autograph Fan.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. O.M., R.A.]
[Illustration: Autograph Fan Japanese.
Mr Frank Brangwyn A.R.A.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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