This fan, together with one of a similar class, with a view of St. Peter’s at Rome, was acquired by the late Baroness at the Walker sale in 1882. Fans were made for children in Italy and most other countries during the eighteenth century. These were both painted and printed, the latter variety often having the numerals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, on the leaf, doubtless as serving an educational purpose. A collection of these children’s fans was exhibited by Miss Marie Josephs at Drapers’ Hall in 1890. The beautiful Italian fan, ‘Cupid’s Hive,’ contributed by Lady Bristol, is so charming in the skill of its painted leaf, and the delicate carving of its ivory-jewelled stick, that it is difficult to conceive of its having been placed in the hands of a child. These fans occasionally appear in painted portraits, the Infanta Margaretha-Theresia, by Velasquez, in the Vienna Gallery, being an instance. The foregoing includes all the principal types of fans produced in Italy during the period we have under consideration; they each present well-marked characteristics, and are therefore not difficult of identification. We have abundant written testimony to the superiority of the Italian workmen during the seventeenth century, and to the extent of the Italian export trade in fans during this period and even later. We have also the evidence of the fans themselves; we shall see, too, how the Paris éventaillistes first learned their craft from the Italian workmen who migrated northward. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, a complete change had taken place in the conditions of fan production, this period witnessing the rise of the French export trade, and the middle of the century its highest development, at which latter period Paris supplied not only Italy but Spain, and to some extent England also. Of this we have more than a hint from the pen of one of the most distinguished Italians of the latter half of the century. The fan of Goldoni’s comedy was one of the ordinary sort, ‘not worth perhaps five paoli.’ The concluding lines of the play make it clear that a considerable trade in the cheaper French fans was done in Italy at this period (1763), and, by inference, that Paris fans had the best reputation, unless indeed we are to suppose that this was a compliment paid by Goldoni to the country of his adoption, from which, too, he enjoyed a pension: CANDIDA (_to_ SUSANNA). It is from Paris, this fan? SUSANNA. Yes, from Paris; I guarantee it. GELTRUDE. Come, I invite you all to supper, and we will drink to this fan which did all the harm and brought all the good. [Illustration: Spanish Fan, skin mount, painted in the Chinese taste. stick ivory, richly carved. Lady Lindsay.] PAINTED FANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES—_Continued_ SPANISH [Illustration: RIGID SCREEN (Carried by the married ladies of Bologna.)]